Chapter One

And Then I Think ‘Why Me?’

I suppose I should have been grateful to him that I didn’t die that day . . . .

I coughed uselessly, trying to force out the water that was invading my lungs, but only managing to pull in another mouthful. My head was spinning and throbbing, my arms and legs felt like they were overheating- just shy of beginning to go numb in my fingers and toes- despite the icy water. Another cough escaped, the tears I was shedding lost, mixing into the waves as I tried to clamp my mouth shut.

Shit! This . . . this is it, isn’t it? My limbs were as heavy as lead, but I still tried to make them work, to kick my legs to get back to the surface, but they wouldn’t do what they were told. Mind beginning to get fuzzy, I was dimly surprised as I felt my panic starting to slip away. I was starting to not care . . . to welcome that soft, rolling blackness that was invading my muck-water-blurred vision; my body, too . . . no longer aching or overheating as I sank.

And then everything just . . . went black.

I can’t say how long I waited, just lying there in that silent darkness, not even certain of when I became conscious. Oh, god, I thought, feeling tears well up all over again, please, please, somebody tell me I didn’t just die! Opening my eyes, I saw a dimly lit tunnel stretching in either direction around me.

Rather than panicking- which I was pretty sure is what I should have been doing- I simply tipped my head to one side against the floor, staring up at the tunnel’s ceiling. Guess all that stuff about near-death experiences isn’t so cliché after all. Slowly pushing myself up to stand, I brushed my clothes off out of habit, surprised for a moment that they were dry again.

“And this is what I get for trying to save my stupid neighbor’s stupid housecat from a stupid flood,” I muttered, squinting down the expanse of tunnel to my right.

There was something over there . . . . Narrowing my eyes a little more, I could just begin to make out a soft, white glow. So . . . I forced a small gulp down my throat, that’s the light I’m supposed to walk towards, right? Turning on my heel, I took a slow, uncertain step as a lone tear escaped my lashes to roll down my cheek. Stupid cat . . . .

I lifted my other foot to continue forward, but then set it right back down. Wasn’t the tunnel supposed to only lead to the white light? Suddenly I was standing up perfectly straight, my entire body rigid as I turned my head with little, trembling motions to look over my shoulder. Why then, if this was only supposed to lead one way, did it have two directions?

The answer came in the form of a muted, deeply red glow, just barely visible from the other end of the tunnel. It wasn’t quite as close as the white light, which I was a little irrationally relieved about, but why did noone ever mention a red light when they came back to life on an operating table? Feeling a little twinge of fear lace its way through my core, I firmly turned my head back and started walking toward the white glow.

Despite the steady, sure-seeming pace of my footsteps, I felt like I was going to crumble- to sink to the floor bawling hysterically at any moment. I didn’t want to be dead! I just . . . just turned eighteen yesterday! I haven’t even graduated yet. I . . . I haven’t had the chance to do anything important with my life. I couldn’t even save that stupid cat! I sniffled, blinking the tears from my eyes; I didn’t even have it in me right then to raise a hand and wipe away that first tear-streak.

As I drew closer to the light, I began to see portraits along the walls. Stopping beside one of the pictures, I looked carefully at it before the image in the gilded silver frame started to make sense. It was me, me standing with my back to a little crying girl as I shook my finger angrily at some grade school boys. I remember that day. I’d known what it was like to be picked on, to be bullied and not know how to fight back- to not have anyone willing to stand up for you; so when I’d seen sweet, quiet, couldn’t-hurt-a-fly Lydia Pearson from down the street being ruthlessly tormented I couldn’t just walk by and leave it be.

I stepped in front of her and- with the menacing dark-rock-chick scowl I’d managed to perfect during freshman year- I glared down at the boys and told them the one thing I knew would frighten the bejeezus out of them. If you ever say a mean word to her again, I swear I will personally go to every one of your houses and tell your parents that you have fun picking on a little girl who’s just lost her father. You make me sick. Seriously, picking on a kid because their parent died? I knew kids could be cruel, but that just made me nauseous.

Oddly, this little girl was the daughter of the same neighbor whose cat I’d been trying to rescue. But then what could I do? Ellie Pearson had recently lost her husband- so recently that she had an eighteen-month-old that the man had never lived to see being born- her daughter was being bullied at school and now her cat was in danger of being swept away in the first flood to hit Mill’s Rock since before I’d been born? Really, there’s just no justice in the world for some people.

The next image was an overlapping cluster, a collage of little mes stuffing bills into various animal rescue donation cans. Yeah, those were the charitable acts that always managed to find me coming up short at the register a week later so I couldn’t buy those jeans, or this book, or that CD. Turning my head, I glanced over my shoulder at the portrait opposite it. My mother and I standing beside her father’s casket; yup, I remember that day, too.

But then, how could I forget- I hated that man and I’m pretty sure he hated me right back. Still, rather than spitting on him or waiting until he was buried and sneaking back over to dance on his grave, I put my arm around my mother and held her up while she cried, acting the part of the good, grieving granddaughter. I didn’t mention that I was glad he was gone, that he was a stupid old man for always treating me and my cousin Trisha like we were less important than the boys of our generation of the family. Never mind that two of my male cousins were high school dropouts, one still lived with his mommy- at twenty eight- and the last one was in rehab; sure, we were the genetically-bred bad seeds because we were girls, right.

Sighing, I shook my head as I pushed some long, wayward locks of my artificially burgundy-brown hair behind my ear. I didn’t want to see anymore. Ten-to-one the old man only got the red side of the tunnel, anyways. Biting deep into my lower lip for a long, silent moment, I finally turned back toward the white light and continued, not even glancing at the remaining portraits. In a way, I hoped I never reached the end.

Was this all my life had been- just a handful of paintings on some gloomy wall? But if my little, itty-bitty, never-really-thought-of-them good deeds were lining this section of the tunnel, then I could only imagine what the paintings down the . . . other end of it might look like. But . . . was this really it? Was this all anyone’s life amounted to?

I don’t wanna die, I don’t wanna die, I don’t wanna die, my mind screamed uselessly over and over again as my feet continued taking me closer and closer to that slowly brightening light. At the last portrait, I stopped. Against my own better judgment I looked at it. Sure enough, it showed me inching through the water toward the cat, stuck in some low-hanging tree branch. Seriously- why did cats always climb trees if they couldn’t get themselves back down again? Some survival instinct that was.

And then it finally did happen. Standing before that white light, beside a portrait of the last good deed I would ever be able to do, I sank to my knees, sobbing quietly.

“Please,” I whispered in a tear-broken voice, I’d never gotten the chance to do anything meaningful with my life . . . not that I had any idea what I’d wanted to do with my life at all, but still . . . now I’d never even get the chance to figure it out. Please, suddenly I was too afraid, too sorrow-stricken to even speak, curling into a ball and wrapping my arms around my legs as I dropped my forehead down against my knees. Somebody help me, somebody save me, please! I mean, c’mon; I wasn’t even sure there was a God at all and now I was going to come face to face with whatever ‘powers that be’ might be waiting within that soft white light? There was no way my psyche wasn’t going to be irreparably damaged by this for lifetimes to come!

I can take you back, I heard suddenly, echoing softly to me from all directions.

Snapping my head up, I blinked the tears from my eyes and looked around, not really surprised that I didn’t see anything. “What?”

I can help you, please, the melodic, crystalline voice said, a pleading tone weaving its way through those almost musical sounding words.

Really, I was the one in death’s grip, what was he begging for? I say he because even though the voice didn’t seem to have a gender I somehow just knew it was male. “How,” I began suddenly before I could stop myself, “how can you help?”

I can take you back to your life, but you must find me, you must help me as well, please.

There was something in that voice, a sad, mournful shading of lost hope- a pain that tore at my heart like it was my own. I stood, looking down the length of dim tunnel. If this is some sort of trick, I am gonna be really pissed off.

“Where are you? How can I help you?” I know what you’re thinking- that it was a trick, that it was something trying to lure me toward the red end of the tunnel- but shit was just weird enough right then that I couldn’t really begin to process that kind of thought.

You must let me in, the voice replied.

“Let you in? I don’t get it.”

Let me into your life, into your world and I can bring you back. Please, please, there was that tangible pain and sorrow flooding the beautiful tone again, you must let me in, for I can dwell in this place no longer. I have been here so very long, please . . . .

“I still don’t understand, what are you asking me to . . .” my voice trailed off as I felt myself being pulled.

Looking down at my feet, I saw that I was slowly being tugged toward the white light, the soles of my combat boots sliding over the ground as unseen hands inched me backwards.

If you let them take you it will be the end, there was something in that voice suddenly that sounded like concern- for myself or for him, I wasn’t sure, but that didn’t seem to matter much as I felt my panic bubbling up all over again. Them? Who was this them he was talking about and . . . and the end? No, no, no- SHIT NO! Even though I’d walked over here on my own two feet, it had only been because there hadn’t seemed to be any other way to go.

“NO,” suddenly I was yelling frantically, the pull toward the light getting stronger, “please- please- whoever you are, help me!” I was struggling against the pull as I shouted; picking up my feet to set them down beyond the light’s reach, but it was about as useful as a mime doing that ‘walking against the wind’ crap.

Then you must say it.

“Say what?” Near-hysterical tears of pure fear were rolling down my cheeks as I began to feel the soft warmth of the light on my back. “What do I have to say, tell me!”

I let you into my life- you must say it, hurry!

Licking my lips nervously, I glanced over my shoulder- the light was so close now that I was almost blinded by it. “I . . .” I had no idea if I was doing something stupid or not, but I was too afraid to care, “I let you into my life!”

No, you must say my name, he pleaded softly.

Holy hell- I so did not have time for this shit! “I don’t know your name!”

Yes, you do.

“I . . .” my voice trailed off as a name skittered across my brain suddenly- like a long forgotten childhood memory, always there, but never thought about. “I- I let you into my life, Kai-Yun!”

Instantly, out of the darkness before me, a hand appeared; long, strong fingers and definitely male. The golden-olive skin was so perfect and unblemished that it almost seemed to give off a glow all its own; like it was illuminated from within or something. Tipping my head back, I forced a hard gulp down my throat, again blinking the tears from my eyes.

Take my hand, he murmured in an urgent but gentle tone.

Dropping my head to look at those beautiful fingers again, I nodded to myself and fought against the light to reach my arm out. He couldn’t close the distance between us- I don’t know how I knew that, I just did- I had to do it. Biting so deep into my lower lip that I was sure I’d made myself bleed, I pulled harder and harder on my arm ‘til it hurt- that stupid light just didn’t want to let go- and then . . . my hand was in his, just like that.

Suddenly a harsh wind gusted past me and I shut my eyes tight against it for a long moment. The wind died away as quickly as it had come and when I opened my eyes again I was sitting on my knees on the peak of a hill-road, not far from where the current had swept me away. The heavy rainfall had slowed to a light drizzle and I could see that already the water choking the lower, flat-grounded streets was beginning to recede. So, what- the streets flooded just long enough to drag my stupid, minorly-heroic ass into the underworld? Oh, that was just perfect.

I felt a warm grip tighten gently around my hand and I realized, that for a split-second, I’d forgotten about my rescuer. I slowly followed the length of my outstretched arm with my eyes up to my wrist and saw that beautiful hand wrapped around my little, deathly-pale white one. My gaze continued up a wide sleeve of black, lustrous silk. The sweep of his long, silvery-blue hair disappeared behind his shoulders- broad shoulders, though I was trying not to notice- and then I found myself staring into a pair of eyes the color of a sunlit ruby, the face they were set into made up of the most gorgeous Asian features I’d ever seen.

I was so dumbstruck by his looks- pointedly ignoring the way they seemed to make dirty thoughts float through my head of their own volition- and voiced the first not-sordid thing to cross my mind. “How . . . how did I know your name?”

“I do not know, as I do not know why I know your name is Brianna,” he replied softly, his voice no longer filled with that crystalline androgyny- it, just like the rest of him, was beautiful in an almost gruff, completely masculine way. “I simply knew that you would be there.”

“How,” I asked again, really it was the only thing I could think to say; there was just too much, too many things that had happened in the last few minutes that I couldn’t bring myself to focus on anything else.

“Your fear of leaving this world called me into that place long before you were born.”

Okay . . . with a statement like that one would think he’d be angry at me or at least sad- being stuck in an awful place like that tunnel for a time longer than my own lifespan- but he wasn’t. His voice was completely tranquil and made me feel like . . . like it was the tone of someone who’d finally found where they belong, like an emptiness finally being filled. I let you into my life . . . . Oh noes.

“I . . . those words I said . . .” I was grasping, trying to find just the right words that wouldn’t make the situation sound lighter than it was. “What does it mean? What happens now?”

He lowered himself in a smooth motion to sit on his heels before me and I realized how tall he must be- easily over six feet, but I’m not a very good judge of height, so I can’t give the exact inches beyond that- which made me, at my whopping five-foot-three-and-a-half-in-my-combat-booted-feet, feel even smaller than usual. His silk garments billowed lightly in the salt-water breezes that floated past us and I couldn’t quite place them. At first glance, they’d looked like feudal Japanese vestments, but now that he was closer, they seemed to have a melding of Chinese and Korean influences as well, though his feet were clad in those funky, two-toed socks I never felt comfortable in myself and black thong sandals. When I’d first figured he was Japanese, I thought I could skate by on my meager knowledge of the culture brought to me from spending Saturday afternoons with my friend Rochelle, both of our noses stuck firmly into manga volumes- Japanese comics, or maybe graphic novels is more appropriate of a description.

I had a little knowledge of Korean culture left over from taking Tae Kwon Do late in grade school and throughout Junior High, but as for anything beyond that, I was completely lost.

“Now,” he repeated the word with a lift of questioning in it- like he was surprised I didn’t know, “now I am yours. It was you who summoned me.”

“S-summoned,” I forced the word out, trying not to stammer and failing miserably as I felt my eyes go wide in my head. “What, like . . . like a demon? Are you a demon?”

He let out a sigh, his ruby eyes roving the ground for a moment as he raised his free hand- why was I only noticing now that his other hand was still holding mine- as he pushed his glossy hair behind one ear that I could now see was pointy like that of a fantasy-movie elf. “I suppose, but not such as you think of it. Demons are only beings from different planes.”

“So then . . .” great, just great, hadn’t I not wanted to think about God or gods or any of the things attached to it or them . . . oh, whatever . . . and why was I still letting him hold my hand? “So then if there are demons, there are angels, too, right?”

He gave a short, soft chuckle, one corner of his mouth curving in a half-smile that- I swear- could’ve charmed the chastity out of a nun. “There are no angels, Brianna, only pretty demons.”

“Then wouldn’t you be an angel?” The words spilled out before I could stop them and I immediately clamped my mouth shut, folding my lips inward and dropping my gaze from his.

“So,” he began and already I could hear a touch of overly-confident amusement in his tone, “that is to say that you think me pretty?”

“Well, I mean . . . you’re a guy, so pretty’s not really the right word. I mean you- you are very nice to look at, but-” I cut myself off as I raised my eyes back to his, gesturing nervously and emphatically with my free hand. “Okay, this part of the conversation just so doesn’t have any point to it. All that stuff about you belonging to me ‘cause I summoned you or whatever, does that mean I’m stuck with you for the rest of my life?”

“Yes,” he replied, seeming totally unfazed by the fact that I’d used a term like stuck with you.

“Oh, oh,” I muttered, more to myself than to him, “this is just friggin’ . . .” my words trailed as I heard a meowing not far from us.

Glancing toward the sound I saw my neighbor’s stupid housecat making her way toward me. “Cappuccino,” I breathed the animal’s name as she padded on her little, furry, mocha-chino colored paws into my lap; what can I tell you, Ellie Pearson’s caffeine addiction is almost as bad as mine. “Oh my God, I thought she’d drowned, too!”

“She had,” the demon . . . angel . . . whatever he was said matter-of-factly, “but in resurrecting you I was obligated to correct the failed effort that cost you your life and- like myself- she is yours, now.”

WHAT? Was he talking about . . . like a familiar or something- had I become a witch and nobody’d bothered to tell me? “But . . . she can’t be mine,” I reasoned quietly, even as the fingers of my free hand began to scratch the soggy little puff-ball between her ears, “she’s my neighbor’s cat.”

“She knows you risked your life for hers, therefore her loyalty is now to you and you alone.”

Oddly, there was some part of my brain that already knew his words made sense on some weird, mystical level that the rest of me didn’t quite grasp, yet. “So then,” I began, looking from the cat to my other hand still resting in his . . . honestly, what was it that felt so comfortable and natural about being um . . . friendly with him, “she’s, uh, bound to me like . . . like you are?”

“Bound,” he echoed and I got the impression that he was surprised that I used that word, but he just smiled gently, “yes”.

“But . . . there’s still a lot about this that I don’t-”

“BRIANNA!” I looked up at the sound of a familiar voice screaming my name in relief.

Ellie Pearson was running up the hill toward me. “Oh, crap,” I muttered under my breath to Kai-Yun- though I still had no clue how I knew his name- “how am I going to explain you to people?”

“Do not fear, for at the moment normal humans cannot see or hear me.” He reluctantly let go of my hand.

Normal humans? Oh, GOD, what did that even mean? Before I could work up any response to his statement Ellie was next to me, throwing her arms around my shoulders. I noticed that she seemed to avoid the area where Kai-Yun sat, like she subconsciously knew where he was or some weird, spiritual, mystical thing like that.

“OH, my God, Brianna,” she was practically shouting into my ear, “I thought you were a goner! I was about to call 911; how did you get out of the water?”

“I . . .” I glanced at Kai-Yun, who simply shrugged, a goofy- and entirely misplaced looking- little grin on his face. “You really don’t see him?” Okay, I know what he said, but it was a little hard to believe.

Ellie looked around and I noticed again that she was avoiding the spot where he was- her eyes skittering over the top of his head- not like she wouldn’t look at him, but like she couldn’t. “See who?”

I groped around in my head for something to cover up what I then realized to be the stupidity of my question. “Um, I didn’t get a good look at him, but, uh, there was a guy who pulled me out of the water.”

“Well, thank God he was there,” she said and all I could think was I’m pretty sure God didn’t have anything to do with this, “and you still managed to save Cappuccino? You’re amazing!”

Ellie reached automatically for the cat and- through the feline didn’t seem to mind the woman petting her- Cappuccino hissed, her little ears flattening against her skull as she pulled away, cuddling deeper into me lap. I blinked down at Cappuccino and then lifted apologetic eyes to Ellie- okay, now how do I explain this, Kai-Yun- but Ellie was already speaking, saving me the trouble of coming up with some half-assed excuse.

“Oh, I um, I guess she knows it wasn’t me who put my neck out for her, huh?”

“I’m so sorry, Ellie, I don’t know why she’s like this all of the sudden.” It was sort of the truth.

“It’s okay, really,” she said in a light tone, but I could tell she was a little sad. “I guess, I mean, Lydia’s been wanting to get a dog, but you know these co-ops only allow one pet per family, so . . . I guess if Cappuccino wants to be yours now, it’s okay. Trisha won’t mind, right?”

Oh, yeah, after this huge fight with my parents one day, maybe five months back, I ran over to Trisha’s house and broke down in tears. My dad was drunk for the first time since he’d completed AA a little over six years ago and he actually took a swing at me because I’d made the observation out loud that he’d broken his sobriety-vow or whatever it was; I was twelve at the time, they really didn’t include me in talks about his rehab. My mother saw the whole thing and didn’t even try to stop it, automatically jumping into that old drunkard’s-wife reflex of apologizing for him. He wasn’t one of those drunks who beat on his wife; he was one of those drunks who beat on his kid for so much as giving him a hard look. Trisha offered me the spare bedroom in her co-op apartment and my mother- as well as my father after he’d sobered up- agreed that it would be best for me to be away from there until dad got back on the wagon.

It’s actually pretty cool because- as much as I love Trisha- she works for some big, multi-national IT company and is often out of town for anywhere from a week to a few months on a particular job-related computer fiasco. A percentage of her paycheck is deposited to a joint account with both of our names on it so that I can pay the bills and buy groceries and crap. Other than still being three months away from graduation and just turning eighteen yesterday I’m technically an adult more or less living on my own, now. Hell, Trisha even let me have parties . . . not that I did, but I could if I wanted to. Did I mention that I love my cousin?

“No,” I said with a shrug, petting the cat who seemed- rather unfairly if you ask me- to be drying faster than I was, “she’s always wanted to get a cat, she just never had the time to stay home and take care of it. Are you sure it would be okay?”

“Yeah,” Ellie said with a smile, her expression brightening just a little as she watched my hand rubbing over Cappuccino’s back. “Now I just have to figure out how to explain it to Lydia. She may want a puppy, but I don’t think she really understands about the complex’s rules regarding pets.”

I chewed my lower lip for a moment when something from the corner of my eye made me look at Kai-Yun; bloody hell, I’d almost forgotten he was there for a moment. He wasn’t looking at me just then, his eyes on the cat in my lap, but I got the oddest feeling- had he . . . had he been looking at my mouth when I’d been gnawing on my lip just now? Fabulous- stuck with a pretty demon-angel guy who was apparently just as attracted to me as I was to him- just fabulous.

Pushing the thought to the back of my mind as hard as I could, since I honestly didn’t know if it was a good thing or a bad thing, I tried to think of a way that the Cappuccino-situation wouldn’t harm the already emotionally-fragile eight year old. “I know, maybe, um, explain to her that you aren’t allowed to have two pets, so you’re just . . . letting Cappuccino stay with me so she can have her puppy. Yeah, say that Cappuccino’s still hers and she can come and see her whenever she wants.”

“Won’t that be a bit of an intrusion for you, I mean- what teenager really wants a little kid barging into their place at all hours?”

Ellie was getting sad again and I could tell that she just didn’t want to feel like she was taking something else out of Lydia’s life, so I shook my head, smiling at her as I answered, “It’ll be fine, really. I know things have been hard on you guys and I’m happy to help out if I can.”

Suddenly she was hugging me again and I heard Kai-Yun snickering at the light grimace that passed over my face- Ellie was a sweetheart and I liked her a lot, but she was just too much sometimes. “Oh, thank you so much, Brianna! Do, um, do you want me to drive you to the hospital, maybe you should get checked out?”

I blanched at the thought- not that I’m one of those people with a thing about hospitals- what if being brought back from the dead made some of the readings or scans or whatever they do come back strange; like in that I’ve never seen anything like it sense of the word?

“No, no,” I said slowly as she pulled away from me. “I think I’m okay I just . . . really wanna go home and get some rest.”

“You’re sure?” she asked as she stood up.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine. I promise I’ll call you if I start feeling otherwise.”

“Okay, then,” she moved to offer me a hand up, but suddenly I felt Kai-Yun’s arm slip around my waist as he pulled me up, just slowly enough that it still appeared as though I was getting up on my own.

Not wanting to seem like I was being rude I immediately dropped my eyes to the cat who’d moved from my lap to my crisscrossed forearms all on her own, pretending that I just plain hadn’t seen Ellie’s helpful gesture. When I finally looked up at her, she’d already dropped her hand back to her side, but the look on her face wasn’t one of insult or wounded pride, it was the look of someone a little embarrassed that they’d made a gesture that had gone unnoticed.

“You want me to walk you back?”

“Um,” I was suddenly acutely aware that Kai-Yun was standing very close behind me- so close that he was practically resting his chin on top of my head. “You can stop worrying about me Ellie, I’m really okay. You need to get back to Lydia and uh,” I lifted Cappuccino in reminder, “explain the situation.”

“You’re right, see you later Brianna and thank you. I’m really glad you’re alright.”

I held in the sigh that was just dying to escape my lips as I watched her break into a jog, disappearing down the hill. I was pretty sure that other than physically being just fine I was as far from being alright as I’d ever been in my life. I set Cappuccino on my shoulder- what can I say, she’s what my mother always called a ‘parrot-cat’- and turned in the direction of the apartment complexes. Luckily, our house was a second-floor co-op, so I wouldn’t need to worry about any of my or Trisha’s stuff being water-damaged.

There were so many things I should’ve been asking Kai-Yun, so many questions about what had happened- what was going to happen- that I should have been bugging him with, but . . . my mind was a total blank. He was keeping pace beside me when I felt his hand on mine again. Glancing down, I saw that he’d laced his fingers through mine. Oddly, though, it felt almost natural, so I just let it be.

He’d saved my life, so I should have been grateful, but my half-formed thoughts kept picking apart only the minute details of my situation- like I was afraid to think over anything too big. I’d been resurrected from the dead- I didn’t even want to wonder exactly what that had entailed- I now had a familiar whose presence in my house would undoubtedly mean an over-anxious eight year old would be staying at my place more than she stayed at home and I was going to be in the constant company of a touchy-feely being from another plane who was so goddamned good looking it would be a wonder if I made through the first night around him without throwing myself on him, but only I could see or hear him.

Yup, there was no way this was going to complicate my life.