The Given

CHAPTER THREE

No.” Grif jerked his head. It wasn’t possible. He may have watched Kit when she didn’t know he was there, but he had been very careful to do as instructed and refrained from making contact. For six long months he’d left her alone. Therefore she couldn’t be dead. “No, Marin would’ve called me if something happened to Kit. We’ve stayed in touch.”

He’d told himself it was smart to make an ally of the Las Vegas Tribune’s editor, especially one with a Rolodex for a brain. What she couldn’t remember off the top of her head, she hunted down like a bloodhound in the countless files she hoarded for herself. No bit of information—or gossip—was too small or insignificant to escape her notice. That’s why he’d told her about Evie . . . or at least that he was looking for an old relative named Evelyn Shaw.

And that’s why, Grif told himself, his desire to keep in touch with Marin had nothing to do with her being Kit’s aunt and only living relative.

“Marin couldn’t call you,” Donel said shortly. “Because she doesn’t know it yet.”

Grif almost laughed. If Marin didn’t know about it, then it hadn’t happened. “It’s six P.M. on a Monday. If Kit skipped work today, Marin would’ve known it before nine A.M.”

“Except that Kit did go to work today. She put in a full shift, and stopped for gas on the way home. She prepared an early dinner of salmon for one before she went to a club called Jitterbug to watch her friends dance. She left early and alone, and was assaulted at nine P.M., as soon as she entered her home.”

Grif looked at his watch. It wasn’t even nine o’clock yet. Though it would be in five more minutes. He whirled.

Sarge just stared back with those sunken eyes. “Her Centurion has already been dispatched.”

Grif swayed, and it had nothing to do with the water beneath them. “And we’re just talking about it? On a fake pirate ship?”

Donel shrugged. “We do not interfere in human affairs.”

Grif did. Growling, he lunged for the hatch leading to the deck. He even anticipated Donel’s charge—or maybe he’d been hoping for it—because all the pent-up anger and sorrow and guilt of the past six months gathered and coiled in his left fist and he let it fly even before thunder cracked across the room. The blow careened into a jaw as hard and sharp as lava rock, and vibrated through Grif’s arm, separating joints. Still, a cry like river rapids tore at the air and flashes of images—Donel, strange and twisting, falling back . . . then bright and burning and whipping forward.

Grif cringed, but the returning strike never came. His breath rasped hard in his chest. Of course, he thought. The Pure couldn’t harm the Chosen.

He couldn’t open his eyes, not with Donel’s rage burning up the room, but he fell to his hands and knees. He didn’t mind begging. Not for this.

“Please,” he said. “Please, she’s been through enough.”

A whoosh of air, the ethereal scrim lowering between them again, and Donel merely glowed. But his words now sizzled. “Yes,” Donel said, mouth turned down. “We believe so, too.”

Desperate, Grif turned back to Sarge. All the strange new furrows in his face had shifted, and Grif watched a tear carving a new track in his destroyed cheeks. Yet he only shook his head. “Donel is right. That’s why we are here.”

He flared his eyes at Grif, his words weighted oddly, but Grif was too worried, too grief-stricken, to care. He didn’t want to play games. Not with this. “I’ll do whatever you want.”

What he couldn’t do was shoot the breeze with a bunch of feathered monsters while Kit was attacked, injured. Murdered.

“We already gave you the opportunity to run down your fate, Shaw, and you chose to stroll.” Donel folded his arms inside his robe. “Allowing you the opportunity to solve your own murder was supposed to heal you so that you could move on into God’s presence. Had you truly been working toward salvation, Katherine Craig would not be dying now.”

Oh, God . . . oh, God . . .

He prayed as he hadn’t in years.

Donel sneered. “Instead, you continue to obsess over the past, and things you cannot change.”

“Yes,” Sarge said again, gesturing around. “That is why we’re here.”

Again, that hard inflection. Grif suddenly realized that only Sarge was posted on the aft end of the ship. And he was directly across from the other Pures. Trying to slow his breathing, trying to think despite his instinct to run for that hatch again—for Kit—Grif worked to calm himself.

“How did it happen?” he asked, because he couldn’t say, “How is it happening?”

“The way it was meant to the first time she was destined to die,” Donel said. “In her home, in her bedroom.”

Grif fought off a wave of nausea by locking eyes with Sarge instead. The Pure narrowed his eyes at Grif. Marble churned.

“There is at least one silver lining for you,” Donel continued, voice again flowing evenly, again in control. “Katherine Craig will no longer distract you from your salvation.”

A snarl rose in his throat and Grif was about to lunge again when Sarge was suddenly there, standing between him and the arrogant Pure. “Donel is right. You must brook no distractions.”

Grif gritted his teeth before catching Sarge’s eye. What the hell was he going on about? Then he realized Donel was also looking at Sarge. Looking like he’d never seen him before.

“What are you doing?” Donel asked. The Pures behind him moved for the first time, edging closer, every eye narrowed on Sarge. Grif took the opportunity to scan the room with his celestial vision—softening his gaze so that the meager light blended, the shadows melting into each other, the ions of every surface shimmering as they shifted. “Oh,” he said, and that’s when everyone turned to him.

He rose to his feet, and stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Sarge. “We’re not really on the Surface.”

Donel growled.

They were in the Everlast. That’s what Sarge had been trying to tell him. He clearly knew what Donel had planned, and he could feel what Grif and Kit felt, so . . .

“I had Nicole Rockwell bring you back to the Everlast while you were unconscious.” Sarge waved at Donel, as if presenting him. “It’s easier on the Host that way.”

“So why make it look like a real place in Vegas?” Grif asked.

The other Pures remained still and silent. They knew something was going on, but Sarge was standing between them and Grif, blocking them from him both physically and mentally. They were as lost as he was.

“Because I knew that if you realized you were in the Everlast you’d immediately try to return to Kit.”

That was it. He could reappear at any time or place he wanted on the Surface, as long as it was the future. He just had to get to Kit before . . .

“Too late,” said Donel, not even needing to read Grif’s mind. His thoughts were plain on his face. “She is even now being relieved of her mortal coil.”

“Then what the hell are we doing here?” Grif yelled, and had the pleasure of watching the Pure cringe at his curse. “Why are you telling me this now?”

Sarge appeared in front of him so suddenly that Grif jumped. He jumped again when one dark hand gripped his shoulder, fingers tense and digging, demanding Grif’s attention, his eyes swirling with emotion that threatened to pour in rivulets down his ruined face. “Your time is short, moving forward—”

“Prophecy now bears down on your head like an anvil!” Donel added for good measure.

Sarge glared at him from over one destroyed shoulder before turning back to Grif. “No, prophecy is a gift. It’s a message from the Divine.”

Grif glanced at Donel. Then why did it feel like a threat? Sarge moved aside.

Donel lifted the scroll once more. “Time to earn your fate, Griffin Shaw.”

“Just read it,” Grif said, because he didn’t care. Kit was dying. Or dead.

Kit . . . God, Kit.

Donel opened his mouth. Teeth like daggers winked as he drew in a deep breath.

“Of course, you should give him his miracle first,” Sarge said.

The room froze over. Arctic wind rushed in, numbing Grif’s limbs. He looked at Donel and trembled, but not from the cold.

“What?” Sarge said innocently, like nothing had happened. He blinked at Donel. “You’re giving him prophecy. The scroll states he’s equally entitled to one miracle.” When no one moved, he shrugged. “Didn’t you read the fine print?”

Donel’s eyes narrowed into slits. “That option’s only exercised if a Pure is willing to grant one from his personal coffers . . .”

And for the first time, Sarge smiled. Grif smiled, too. He already knew what he . . .

Donel roared, and light rippled from his skin. Grif cringed as it stabbed at him, rays like swords, the sound threatening to rupture his eardrums. It was no use. Donel’s anger infused the room with infernal heat. The world was afire. Suddenly, the air twisted and a cooling balm of shadows encased him. Grif blinked the haze from his eyes and saw that the heated rays were still trying to reach him, but he was enshrouded in black feathers and arms—shielded by Sarge’s wings, he realized—though Donel continued to roar.

Then the ship’s deck disappeared above them, and the heavens surged overhead. Lightning flashed, and Donel’s roar cut off with a chagrined yelp. For a moment, the fullness of the silence was deafening, the heavy hand of God’s presence stifling. Donel fell to his knees. Shifting, Sarge lowered his head and folded his wings behind him. Grif risked a skyward glance but saw only the deck closing back over them, plank by plank, though the air remained sulfurous and shocked.

“I wash my hands of this, Francis,” Donel rasped, when time began moving again. His teeth were bared, and his voice rushed like rapids. “You are playing favorites with these mortals! You are interfering!”

Sarge shrugged one tattered shoulder. “I’m not the one who just got reprimanded.”

Donel unfurled his wings with a sharp snap. They spanned one end of the ship to the other. “This is all on you!”

“Yes.” Sarge looked at Grif, no longer speaking to the other Pure. “It is.”

Donel roared and shot up, directly through the newly built illusion of the ship. The report of the wood splintering was like cold and hot air crashing together. The other Pures followed his storm cloud, and, breathing hard, Grif watched them go until Sarge reached out and gently waved his hand over the breech.

“Jesus,” Grif breathed, as silence again loomed.

“No. That was His daddy.”

Who else, Grif thought, could cow a Seraph?

Sarge answered the thought by quirking one eyebrow. “Donel forgot himself. It’s not his place to impart lessons to the Chosen.”

That’s right. It was Sarge’s job.

“You knew what he was going to do.”

“What, ambush you with prophecy? Yes. And I couldn’t stop him . . . there’s nothing anyone can do to stop prophecy, Shaw. Once it’s uttered, you are on a one-way street leading directly to your fate. You will either fulfill it or you won’t. But I could at least offer a little guidance.”

He meant that even one-way streets could be littered with potholes.

Grif nodded to show he understood, then licked his lips. “Okay. Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet. Donel was right. It’s time to figure out once and for all who killed Griffin Shaw.”

“Fine. Tell me about this prophecy.”

“And?” Sarge quirked one eyebrow.

Grif huffed at the Pure’s knowing look. “And, yeah. I’ll go ahead and take that miracle now as well.”

And sharing a dual thought of Kit Craig, Sarge and Grif both smiled.

Grif normally traversed worlds using actual doorways. Windows worked, too, but a recognizable portal of entry into the Everlast was calming for souls who’d been traumatized by sudden death. Grif rather liked it himself, even when returning alone to the Surface. Fifty years of skipping along moon shadows, and the sudden emergence from the silky black cosmos onto the Surface—especially the Las Vegas Strip—was a bit jarring. So he took a moment to compose himself, imagining the time and location he wanted to reappear on the Surface, then reached out and opened the hatch that Donel had been blocking.

As expected, he levered himself up onto the deck of a ship rocking beneath the weight of a faux pirate battle. The bridge between worlds was that simple for him. Sure, the wooden hatch bent like putty when he touched it, and rippled as if rustling wind lived inside the slivered surface, but for Grif it was like stepping from a dry sauna into a wet one. When you were both human and angelic, the membrane between worlds was rice-paper thin, and crossing from one to the other was as easy as blowing out candles and making a wish.

“Hey!” The shout sounded behind him as he headed toward the gangplank, and he turned to see an actor squinting at him through a dashing black eye patch. The faux pirate rushed to block him, pointing at Grif with a wooden sword. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that before,” Grif muttered, shoving the sword aside like a turnstile, and leaping to the dock next to some wide-eyed tourists. Germans, if their tube socks were any indication. Ignoring them, he began heading south . . . on a Saturday night that he’d already lived.

That was his miracle. Not a rush to Kit’s defense. Not, thankfully, an arrival on the scene to a murder in progress. No, this was a real miracle—a return to the Surface and to the past. Not only that, Grif was using his miracle to kill two birds.

“How far back do you want to go?” Sarge had asked, leaving it up to him.

“You mean do I want to go all the way back to 1960?”

The incline of Sarge’s head indicated it was an option. “You can’t alter your own fate, of course. But . . . there is Evie.”

Evie, whom he’d married in 1958, when he was already thought to be a confirmed bachelor at thirty-one, and she still a dewy-eyed twenty-two. Evie, whom he’d loved so much he couldn’t imagine living without her.

Evie, who’d also fallen under attack because Grif had neglected to protect her.

But these memories were dusty and light compared to the boulder of grief that’d slammed into Grif when Donel told him Kit was dying. That was a blow that’d stopped the breath in his chest, and made his lungs scream along with the denial in his mind. That was an event that, if true, made him want to simply lie down and die as well.

Again.

“Send me back to the time of Barbara McCoy’s death,” he told Sarge, with a nod of his head. “I can stop that murder, question her killer, and then she can help me find Evie.”

From there, he’d go on to protect Kit and find out who killed him fifty years earlier.

Easy-peasy. Right?

“No,” Sarge had said, reading his mind again. Grif huffed in annoyance, but Sarge just crossed his arms, looking more like his old self. “It’s anything but easy. If you choose this path, if you go back in time, nothing will happen as it’s meant to. You’ll be rewriting history, and fate will try to rip the pen from your hand and scribble over your intentions. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“Yeah. I get a shot at saving Kit’s life.” And nothing else mattered. “So let’s get on with it.”

So Sarge agreed, saying he’d allow enough time to get to McCoy’s home before she was killed, and now Grif was quick-footing it down the infamous Las Vegas Strip, dodging tourists like a salmon swimming upriver. He ignored the scattershot music blasting from the giant LED screens overhead, the roar of cabs and car horns on the wide, joyous streets, and the river of cascading lights overhead, so bright that they shuttered out the heavens he’d so recently inhabited.

The first time he’d lived this night he was playing cards with a bunch of old-timers in the back of the Italian-American Club, a social circle that’d been surprisingly hard to infiltrate. He’d been hoping they could give him some leads on the boys who’d run this town in 1960 . . . if any of them were left.

No chance of that now. He’d stood them up, and there’d be no second invite, though he might not need it if he reached Barbara McCoy in time. It was almost seven at night. She was slated to die within the hour.

He sidestepped, barely evading a body blow from a woman who was laughing as she looked behind her, swinging a neon drinking cup the length of her arm. A loud couple nudged by in the other direction, the male hitting Grif’s shoulder as they passed, but he ignored it, turned down Flamingo, and headed east. He overtook an older couple, both huffing as they dragged luggage down the sidewalk in search of McCarran Airport.

“It’s farther than it looks,” the woman grumbled, steering wide of a homeless man slumped against the wall. He smelled of alcohol and was arguing with ghosts. Unlike on the main drag, the homeless were more evident here. Another reminder that frivolity existed in the same world as abject cruelty, not that Grif needed it.

He paused before the man and handed him a few bucks. Then he thought about it, and handed over the entire roll. He’d been fresh off the craps tables when he died, plenty flush. Plus, no matter how much money he spent in this lifetime, the full amount would return to his wallet at the exact time of his original death: 4:10 every morning.

“What if I steal your wallet?” Kit had once asked, after learning of—seeing—his angelic nature.

“Then I slap your wrist,” he said, playfully doing just that as she curled up tight, warm at his side. He linked his fingers in hers. “But it’ll be back in my pocket at 4:10. Same as everything I died in.”

“So that explains the sweet vintage suit, the wingtips, the shit-hot stingy-brim.”

Yes, it explained all of his clothes, along with the photo of Evie he’d carried in his wallet, the snubnose with four remaining rounds secured at his ankle. All that was missing was his wedding ring, his driver’s license, and the memory of his death. The latter was why it was so damned hard for him to move on. His thoughts were still caught in 1960. Yet how could he look to the future when so many questions remained?

Strange, but the question no longer felt as important as it had before Nicole Rockwell had knocked him upside the head. Knocked some sense into him, too, it seemed, because Donel had been right about one thing. Grif’d been caught in an emotional limbo, stuck waiting for something, anything, to happen.

And now something had.

Gradually the streets shifted from bright and gaudy to a more muted chaos, and the Panorama Project, where Barbara McCoy lived, loomed before him. The high-rise was famous for its opulence and valley-wide views, which meant it was easy to spot as well. Good. The thought of having to ask for directions made him break out in sweat.

Drawing close, he studied the billboards touting the building’s many amenities and, with unit prices close to the seven-figure mark, there were more than a few. It boasted its own grocery “boutique,” as well as a dry cleaner, a workout facility and spa, and conference rooms for executives who preferred to take a mere elevator ride to work. There was a secure underground parking garage for residents, and a private guard to assist visitors. Barbara’s death in the guarded and stacked high-rise should have been a near impossibility. Grif shook his head. He also wondered how the hell he was going to get in.

He glanced straight up and took in the soaring twenty-floor facade as he approached the main entrance. Yet one look from the building’s guard, who gave Grif a good once-over as he circled the short drive, and a second glance at the security cameras dotting the shining glass entryway, and he knew he wouldn’t be entering from the front.

“Just gimme a door,” he muttered, shoving his hands into his pockets. He headed around the corner, pausing there for a moment.

It was Saturday night, but this neighborhood purposely lacked a thoroughfare, making the depths of it quiet, a stillness enhanced by the evening’s chill. Yet the high-rise was in the foreground, and there a steady stream of limousines and taxis were ferrying couples along the complex’s circular drive. The men were in tuxes, the women in furs, and all were greeted by the doorman or the security guard before disappearing inside.

Grif glanced down at his classic suit, smiled, and buffed his wingtips on the back of his pant legs. Then he straightened his skinny tie and decided to take a little stroll.

He timed his approach as a powder-blue Bentley rolled into the drive. The sleek, humming ride had the doorman jumping to attention, and Grif waited until the man had his hands full with fur pelts and perfumed wrists, assisting a woman wearing heels so stacked they resembled hooves. The doorman steadied her on her pins as she tried to find purchase on the faux cobblestone, and Grif slipped behind him . . . then plowed directly into a most inflexible chest.

“Good evening, sir,” rumbled the security guard. “Can I help you.”

It wasn’t a question.

“No, I’m fine.” Grif rubbed his chin and made to move around the guard.

The guard—HOWARD, said the name tag—intercepted like a linebacker. But not before Grif spotted the placard directing guests to the pool house.

“I’m afraid all visitors must check in with me, sir. Which resident may I call for you?”

Grif wasn’t about to say Barbara McCoy, not with her pending murder, so he motioned in the direction of the pool house. “I’m here for the Hastings’ vow renewals.”

He sidestepped the guard again, but Howard countered by widening his stance. Apparently, this was a full-on scrimmage. “Your invitation?”

Grif turned up his hands and motioned down his body. “I’m the entertainment.”

Howard’s brow remained low for a moment longer. Then a slow smile bloomed across his weathered face. “Of course! The funny hat should have tipped me off—”

Grif crossed his arms. He suddenly felt like scrimmaging.

But Howard motioned him inside, even holding the door wide as he pointed to the left. “Mr. Hasting loves all those old crooner tunes. Go on in. I think your band is already setting up.”

He was being so helpful that Grif forgave the hat remark. “Warming up,” he said, shooting Howard a wink. “They need more practice than me.”

The pool house lay tucked to the rear of the giant property, where a pert hostess in black silk cradled a clipboard, cheerily checking off guests’ names while a swing band was indeed setting up behind her. A normal enough scene, except that the band was suspended directly atop the pool. Vegas had to do everything bigger. He bet even the lemonade stands sported strobes and sequins.

Grif strolled over to the twin elevators leading to the residential towers, and bent to tie his shoe. When he rose, he sent a warm pulse of energy into his hand, and flashed his palm over the security card reader. The doors slid open with a soft ding.

Grif caught one last glimpse of the woman wearing furs and glittering hooves before the elevator doors slid shut, and he began his ascent. At least the paper had mentioned that Barbara lived on the fifteenth floor. When he stepped out again, it was into a hallway carpeted in elegant grays. A soft chime seemed to greet his arrival, but no . . . it was just the second set of elevator doors sliding shut, heading down. Good timing.

Moving quickly, Grif waved his hand in front of a smoky, half-domed camera. A sizzling sound slithered through the air before smoke began trailing from beneath the dome. The celestial powers left to him after his return to inhabit flesh didn’t extend much beyond this simple magic trick, but sometimes it was enough.

“Okay, Barbara,” he muttered, turning to face the long, silent hall. “Let’s find out why you think I deserved to die.”