Meg Cabot - Darkest Hour

I thought about Father Dominic. And Jack. Poor Jack. If that rope had been cut, it could only have been because something catastrophic had happened down in the church. Maria de Silva, that practicing Catholic Father D had been so convinced would never dare launch an attack on consecrated ground, had not been as frightened of offending the Lord as Father Dominic had assumed she'd be. I hoped he and Jack were all right. Her problem was with me, not them.

"Susannah." Jesse was peering down at me. "Susannah, why aren't you looking? You cannot give up, Susannah. We'll find it. I know we'll find it."

I just looked at him. I wasn't even seeing him, really. I was thinking about my mother. How was Father Dominic going to explain it? I mean, if he wasn't already dead himself. My mom was going to be really, really suspicious if my body was found in the basilica. I mean, I wouldn't even go to church on Sunday. Why would I be there on a Friday night?

"Susannah!" Jesse had reached out and seized me by both my shoulders. Now he gave me a shake with enough force to send my hair flying into my face. "Susannah, are you listening to me? We only have five more minutes. We've got to find a way out. Call him."

I blinked up at him, confusedly pushing my long dark hair from my eyes. That was one thing, anyway. I'd never have to worry about finding the perfect shade to cover my gray. I'd never turn gray now.

"Call who?" I asked dazedly.

" The gatekeeper ," Jesse said through gritted teeth. "You said he was your friend. Maybe he'll show us the way."

I looked into Jesse's eyes. I saw something in them I'd never seen before. I realized, in a rush, what that something was.

Fear. Jesse was afraid.

And suddenly I was afraid, too. Before I'd just been shocked. Now I was scared. Because if Jesse was afraid, well, that meant something really, really bad was about to happen. Because Jesse does not scare easily.

" Call him ," Jesse said, again.

I tore my gaze from his and looked around. Everywhere - everywhere I looked - I saw only fog, night sky, and more fog. No gatekeeper. No hole back to the Junipero Serra Mission church. No hallway filled with doors. Nothing.

And then, suddenly, there was something. A figure, striding toward us. I was filled with relief. The gatekeeper, at last. He would help me. I knew he would....

Except that, as he came closer, I saw it wasn't the gatekeeper at all. This guy didn't have anything on his head except hair. Curly brown hair. Just like -

"Paul?" I burst out incredulously.

I couldn't believe it. Paul. Paul Slater. Paul Slater was coming toward us. But how -

"Suze," he said conversationally as he strolled up. His hands were in the pockets of his chinos, and his Brooks Brothers shirt was untucked. He looked as if he had just breezed in from a long day on the golf course.

Paul Slater. Paul Slater .

"What are you doing here?" I asked. "Are you ... are you dead?"

"I was about to ask you the same question," Paul said. He looked at Jesse, who was still clutching my shoulders. "Who's your friend? He is a friend, I assume."

"I - " I glanced from Jesse to Paul and then back again. "I came up here to get him," I explained. "He's my friend. My friend Jesse. Jack accidentally exorcised him, and - "

"Ah," Paul said, rolling back and forth on his heels. "Yes. I told you that you should have left well enough alone with Jack. He'll never be one of us, you know."

I just stared at him. I could not figure out what was happening. Paul Slater, here? It didn't make any sense. Not unless he was dead. "One of ... what?"

"One of us," Paul repeated. "I told you, Suze. All this do-gooding, mediator nonsense. I can't believe you fell for it." He shook his head, chuckling a little. "I would have thought you were smarter than that. I mean, the old man, I can understand. He's from a completely different world - a different generation. And Jack, of course, is ... well, clearly unsuited for this sort of thing. But you, Suze. I'd have expected more from you."

Jesse let go of my shoulders but kept one hand firmly around one of my wrists ... the wrist with Father Dominic's watch on it. "This," he said, "is not the gatekeeper, I take it."

"No," I said. "This is Jack's brother, Paul. Paul?" I looked at him. "How did you get here? Are you dead?"

Paul rolled his eyes. "No. Please. And you didn't need to go through all that rigmarole to get here, either. You can, like me, come and go from here when you please, Suze. You've just been spending so much time 'helping' " - he made quotation marks in the air with his fingers - "lost souls like that one" - he nodded his head in Jesse's direction - "you've never had a chance to concentrate on discovering your real potential."

I stared at him. "You told me . . . you told me you don't believe in ghosts."

He smiled like a kid with his hand caught in the cookie jar. "I should have been more specific," he said. "I don't believe in letting them walk all over me, like you clearly seem to." His gaze roved over Jesse contemptuously.

I was still having trouble processing what I was seeing ... and hearing.

"But . . . but isn't that what mediators are supposed to do?" I stammered. "Help lost souls?"

Paul heaved a shudder, as if the fog swirling around us had suddenly grown colder. "Hardly," he said. "Well, maybe the old man. And the boy. But not me. And certainly not you, Susannah. And if you'd bothered giving me the time of day, instead of being so caught up trying to rescue this one" - he sneered in Jesse's direction - "I might have been able to show you precisely what you're capable of. Which is so much more than you can begin to imagine."

A glance at Jesse told me that I had better cut this little conversation short if I didn't want any bloodshed. I could see a muscle I'd never noticed before leaping in Jesse's jaw.

"Paul," I said. "I want you to know that it really means a lot to me, the fact that you, apparently, have your finger on the pulse of the mystical world. But right now, if I don't get back to earth, I'm going to wake up dead. Not to mention the fact that if I'm not mistaken, your little brother might be having a really hard time down there with a guy named Diego and a chick in a hoop skirt."

Paul nodded. "Yes," he said. "Thanks to you and your refusal to acknowledge your true calling, Jack's life is in danger, as is, incidentally, the priest's."

Jesse made a sudden motion toward Paul, which I cut short by holding up a restraining hand.

"How about giving us some help then, huh, Paul, if you know so much?" I asked. It was no joke, holding Jesse back. He seemed ready to tear the guy's head off. "How do we get out of here?"

Paul shrugged. "Oh, is that all you want to know?" he asked. "That's easy. Just go into the light."

"Go into the - " I broke off, furious. " Paul !"

He chuckled. "Sorry," he said. "I just wanted to know if you'd seen the movie."

But he wasn't chuckling a bit a split second later when Jesse suddenly launched himself at him.

I'm serious. It was way WWF. One minute Paul was standing there, smirking, and the next, Jesse's fist was sinking into his tanned, handsome face.

Well, I'd tried to stop him. Paul was, after all, probably my only way out of there. But I can't say I really minded when I heard the sound of nasal cartilage tearing.

Paul was pretty much a baby about the whole thing. He started cursing and saying stuff like, "You broke my nose! I can't believe you broke my nose!"

"I'll break more than your nose," Jesse declared, clutching Paul by his shirt collar and waving his blood-smeared fist in front of his eyes, "if you don't tell us how to get out of here now ."

How Paul might have responded to this interesting threat I never did find out. That's because I heard a sweetly familiar voice call my name. I turned around, and there, running toward me through the mist, was Jack.