C. Barry - Redemption

“Was the church open last night?” Thane asked, grasping at straws. There’s no way they’d leave this place wide open all night around here.

“No, but—”

Thane cocked his head. “But what?”

The priest moved closer to the screen, and Thane could see his black and white vestment. “When I opened the doors this morning, all the prayer candles were lit, and recently, too. I have no explanation for that.”

“Maybe it was a ghost,” Thane said, half-joking.

“At least it’s a good ghost,” the priest said.

As far as you know , Thane thought. “Thank you for your time, Father.”

“Are you sure you don’t want reconciliation?”

His question stopped Thane with his hand on the door. “I’m sorry, but I think we’re well past that.”

“It’s never too late,” the priest said. Then he murmured a few words of prayer, but Thane didn’t stick around to hear them.

Reya rolled over in bed and checked the clock. 6 a.m. Too frickin’ early. She pulled the covers over her head.

“Time to rise,” Orson said.

She shot up in bed. “What the hell, Orson?”

He was sitting in a chair in the dark, six feet from her bed, fully dressed and pressed. He always looked the same. “Are you rested?”

“I’ll never sleep again,” she muttered, and threw off the blankets. Damn, it was still dark out. “You better have a live one for me.”

“You shouldn’t have talked to Louis,” he said simply.

She eyed him. He knew about that. Of course, he would. And he was right. It had been an impulse move. She really just wanted to scare the kid. She’d seen the breach of light in his soul, heard the beat of his good heart beneath the layers of anger and hate. It reminded her of the one she used to have. “You keep telling me that I should use my powers for good, not evil. So I did.”

“He’s alive to tell others of your existence, of your abilities,” Orson said.

She stood up to stretch her long body. It was a good body as far as bodies went, but it still required more maintenance than she cared for. Hopefully, she wouldn’t need it forever.

“Who’s going to believe him?”

“ Someone believed him, and now we have a small problem,” Orson said, and laid his hands over the notebook on his lap.

She looked at him. “This whole city is a problem.”

He ignored her point. “You have been targeted by the local authorities.”

Again? “You give me the missions. It’s not my fault if I get caught.”

Orson smiled knowingly.

“What?” she said. “You set up the logistics, not me.”

“But you smile at the camera,” he pointed out. “And you interfere with souls you shouldn’t. Like Louis.”

Okay, maybe she broke the rules once in a while. That’s because she had so damn many of them. “It doesn’t matter. They’ll never find me.”

“That’s not the issue,” he said.

She waved him off. “Whatever. Just deal with them like you always do.”

He shook his head. “Not this time. This time is different.”

Fine, he had her attention. Reya walked to her closet to get out her clothes for the day. “Why is that?”

“The man who is looking for you can hear us,” he said.

She blinked a few times before turning to him. “Not possible.”

Orson smiled slowly. “He is a legacy.”

Legacy? Reya shook her head. Legacies were history. “No. We haven’t had a legacy in thirty years. They were all killed by Surt when he went on his rampage.”

“Only the good ones,” Orson said.

Maybe it was because of the early hour, but it took her a moment to process what he was saying. “I thought you said this guy was law enforcement? Aren’t those the good guys?”

“Not always,” Orson replied. “Sometimes, they change.”

Why did these things happen to her? “What? So I have a bad cop after me?”

Orson said carefully, “He’s on the edge.”

Great. Gray area. Black and white was so much more convenient. “I don’t care if he’s a legacy, he still won’t find me.”

“Yes, he will,” Orson persisted. “He can hear us now. Eventually, his other powers will manifest. He’ll be able to communicate and interact with the other dimensions.”

She hated when Orson said stuff like that. Because nine times out of ten, he was right. She shrugged and tossed her heavy short staff on the bed. “We’ll move on then.”

Orson frowned deeply when he saw it. “You don’t need that weapon.”

He disapproved of the trinket she’d brought with her from the dark side, but she liked the protection. “Yes, I do. I’ve seen how the dark side operates, remember?”

“You are strong enough to fight them without it,” Orson said.

Right. “Where are we off to next? I hear L.A. has lots of bad people.”

“We can’t move,” Orson said. “There is much work to be done here.”

She threw up her hands in defeat. “Then what do you want from me?”

He got to his feet and clasped the notebook in his hands. “I can’t tell you exactly how to diffuse the situation, but I’m sure you’ll handle it quietly.”

Handle it quietly? Since when had she ever managed to do that?

“Until then,” he added. “No new cases.”

That did it. She confronted him before he had a chance to vanish. “You can’t do that to me, Orson. We had a deal.”

He shook his head. “This jeopardizes our deal. You need to convince him that you are not involved in the deaths of our recently departed.”

Oh, for crying out loud. “And how exactly would I go about doing that? Tell them I’m a dead soul come back to life? Tell them I have to earn my way back into Heaven? What?”

“Whatever it takes,” he said. “Whatever he’ll believe.”

“And what if he doesn’t?” she asked, her hands on her hips. “How do I fulfill my redemption requirement?”

“I’m sure you’ll do fine. And remember, he cannot know his future fate.” And then he faded away, leaving her gaping at the space he’d occupied.

She rubbed her forehead. This was bad. Worse than bad. She had only one chance to make things right, and she’d be damned if some nosy cop was going to ruin it for her.

“I need a name,” she yelled at the bedroom ceiling.

Then she noticed a small scrap of paper had appeared on the chair where Orson had sat. Or maybe he’d left it behind, she didn’t know.

She walked over and picked it up. It read “Thane Driscoll.”

“Hey Driscoll, you need to see this,” Pampinella, the officer in charge said.

While Martin was parking the car, Thane ducked under the yellow tape that wound around the crime scene. It was 2 p.m. when the call came in that a fresh victim had turned up in SoHo.

Red and blue lights shot across the buildings that blanketed the corner where the man had been found—burned to a crisp for no apparent reason or method.

The body was black and frozen in a silent scream. Thane nodded to the forensic guy who was taking photos of the body and the crime scene. It was all contained in a small area.

Thane asked Pampinella, “What happened to him?”

“According to witnesses, he was walking down the street and just burst into flames,” he said, and shook his head. “But I’ll be damned if I can figure out how. There’s no reports of an accelerant or source. I mean, people saw fire consume his entire body in a matter of seconds, but no one can explain how. That’s why you’re here.”

Thane knelt next to the victim. He was unrecognizable. The only thing that was evident was the terror in his facial features and his body language. “Could it have been a flame thrower?”