Kelley Armstrong - Living with the Dead

Finn had passed those warnings on to Robyn and she'd been quicker than anyone to assure him that she understood, that if it didn't work, that was okay. Which wasn't true. Yes, she'd understand. But it wouldn't be okay. Not for her. Not for Damon. Not for Finn.

They tried it in Robyn's apartment, just the three of them: Finn, Damon and Robyn. He'd followed the ritual and then… A flicker of images, like a film strip on fast forward. It lasted only a second or two, and when his vision cleared, he was in a strange apartment, sitting in a leather beanbag chair.

Finn touched the chair. He could see his fingers make contact, but couldn't feel the leather. He poked it. His fingers passed through, the leather still smooth.

From the other room, he heard… his voice. Singing. A song he didn't recognize, in a timbre he didn't recognize. A sob. Then a cry that he knew – even if he couldn't make it out – was Robyn saying a name. Damon's name.

He pictured Robyn leaping from her chair, her face…

The apartment next door went silent, and he imagined her throwing herself toward him. His arms outstretched. Robyn in them. Robyn kissing him. But not him. Not really him.

He imagined it and…

He stopped imagining it.

As he sat there, trying not to eavesdrop, an idea wriggled up from the deepest part of his brain. It had been burrowing there since he'd first realized he might be able to let Damon into his body.

It wasn't so much an idea as an impulse. One that if he decided to follow through on, he knew he couldn't think too much about. Do it or don't.

He pushed to his feet. At the door, he reached for the knob. His fingers passed through. He paused a moment, staring at it. From the next room came a chuckle, then a snuffle – a laugh breaking off in a sob. Finn squared his shoulders and stepped through the door.

Down the hall. He paused outside the elevator, but had no idea how that would work, and wasn't about to shimmy down elevator cables. To the stairwell then. To the lobby. Out the front doors.

He stopped in the doorway. Did he want to do this? It felt like the right thing to do, and he supposed that was what counted. As for what he wanted, he honestly didn't know anymore. It had been too long since he'd considered it.

He did know one thing. He was tired. Tired of being in Los Angeles. Tired of solving cases no one seemed to care about. Tired of the whispers, the looks, the laughs. Tired of being different. Tired of being alone.

A shoe squeaked behind him. Before he could turn, a man walked through him, striding down the sidewalk, briefcase swinging.

Finn made it a dozen steps before a voice called, "And where do you think you're going?"

Finn turned. To his left was an abstract sculpture. A woman in jeans, boots and a T-shirt sat on it, reclining against a curved piece of steel, her face in shadow.

"I'm talking to you, Detective," she said.

She stretched and stood and, for a moment, Finn saw the girl from the photograph in Sean Nast's office. Nast's little sister. But this woman was older – at least Finn's age, with dark eyes, not bright blue. Still, the resemblance was uncanny.

"I asked where you think you're going." The woman walked toward him, her foot passing through a discarded soda bottle. A ghost.

"It's okay," he said, because it was all he could think of. A polite nod, then he turned to head on his way.

"Actually, it's not okay." The woman walked in front of him and turned around. "You can't leave Damon in your body. An insanely noble gesture, Detective Findlay, but you can't. The Fates let you pull off the body switch, but it's temporary. I'm here to make sure of that. And neither of us, I'm afraid, has any say in the matter."

Finn stepped to the side. The woman put out her hands and murmured something. The air between her hands glittered, then shimmered, a sword taking form. A huge one, with glowing symbols etched into the metal.

"Pretty, huh? Being a necro, you know what this is, right?"

Finn shook his head.

The woman sighed. "It's the outfit, isn't it? I know, they keep trying to make me wear the uniform, but those wings are just so damned uncomfortable. Have you ever tried sitting with wings stuck to your shoulders? And the halo? Does nothing for me."

"An… angel?"

"Don't sound so skeptical. You'll hurt my feelings." She lifted the sword. "Point is, this baby has a point. A very sharp one. And you do not want to feel it. So we're doing this the easy way. We let Damon and Robyn have their reunion, and you go back into your body, and nobody gets hurt. Got it?"

Finn said nothing.

"Damn, you're stubborn, aren't you?" She stepped closer. With the boots, she was almost as tall as Finn. "You're going back, Detective. That's not an option. If you get away from me, I hunt you down and introduce you to the sword. And don't ask me to look the other way and let you go, because it won't help. In minutes, they'll have another angel here to dump you back into your body before Damon's allotted hour is up, and I'll get my ass kicked for screwing up. No one will thank you for that, least of all me. So you are going back."

"Can I -?"

"No. Whatever the question is, the answer is no. Your life isn't over, you have to finish it. That's not up for negotiation. The most I can do is extend Damon's visit a little. Take you for a walk, get caught up in the chitchat, give him a couple of hours…"

Finn could tell arguing would do no good. He did hesitate, though, enough to make the angel sigh and lean on her sword, toe tapping. Then he nodded.

"Good man. We'll go this way. I thought I saw a park. If we catch a mugging in progress, I might be able to use my sword. Not a full-fledged soul-chopping, mind you. But a little nick that'll sting like a son of a bitch. Always fun."

They turned onto the sidewalk.

"I hear you met Sean the other day."

Finn glanced at her.

"Sean Nast."

"Right…"

"Did he seem okay to you? His dad has been worried. Well, we both have actually. Sean's a good kid, but he really doesn't belong in the Cabal and Kris hates seeing…"

Robyn was burning her scrapbook. It was a grand symbolic gesture that should, she admitted, have an equally grand setting – curled up by a massive fireplace, feeding pages into the blaze. In an apartment, it wasn't nearly so grand… or so simple. She had a metal garbage can by the open patio doors, a fan blowing the smoke out and wet towels draped over the smoke detectors. And she had to remove the newspaper clippings from the plastic pages before lighting them. But she did have a glass of wine beside her, which helped the atmosphere.

It took nearly an hour to go through the scrapbook, back to front. Then, finally, she held the first clipping. Damon's death notice. She looked at it, at his unsmiling face, at the cold harsh facts of his death… and she held the lighter to the corner.

As she watched the article crumble into black ash, she smiled. She'd kept that article as her last memory of him… and now it wasn't. She had a new one – of Damon right here, in this room, holding her, talking to her, singing to her.

It had been strange at first, seeing him in Finn's body. But all she'd had to do was close her eyes and it was Damon. His voice, his touch, his kiss and, most of all, his words.

She'd envied people who had last moments with their loved ones, a chance to say final words before they passed. But even then there would be things they hadn't realized they wanted to say until it was too late. She'd gotten that chance and she would never forget what a blessing it was, no more than she'd forget who'd given it to her.

Even just telling her Damon was still "alive" in some way, that he still lived, still existed, had been an amazing gift. Relaying his words to her would have been wonderful. But Finn had done more. And he'd paid the price, exhausted and weak, still dragging himself into work the next morning, determined not to hand her case off to another detective.