(Are you all finished singing?)
Gillian froze.
(Because I've got one for you.) The voice in her head began to sing raucously. Eerily. (The Pha-a-antom
of the Opera is here, inside your mind...)
"Oh, come on, Angel. You can do better than that. And why aren't you letting me see you? Too scared to meet me face to face?"
A light shimmered over the snow-a beautiful pale golden light that rippled like silk. It grew, it took on a shape.
And then Angel was standing there. Not floating. His feet actually seemed to touch the snow.
He looked-terrific. Haunting and beautiful in the gathering twilight. But his beauty was only frightening now. Gillian knew what was underneath it.
"Hi there," she almost whispered. "I guess you know what I'm here to talk about."
"Don't know and don't care. Should you be out here alone, anyway? Does anybody know where you are?"
Gillian positioned herself in front of him. She looked directly into eyes that were as violet and darkly luminous as the sky.
"I know what you are," she said, holding those eyes, giving every word equal weight. "Not an angel. Not a devil. You're just a person. Just like me."
"Wrong."
"You've got the same feelings as any other person. And you can't be happy being where you are.
Nobody could. You can't want to be stuck there. If I were dead, I'd hate it."
The last words came out with a force that surprised even Gillian. Angel looked away.
An advantage. Gillian leapt in. "Hate it," she repeated. "Just hanging around, getting stagnant, watching other people living their lives. Being nothing, doing nothing-unless it's to make a little trouble for people on earth. What kind of a life is tha-" She broke off, realizing her mistake.
He was grinning maliciously, recovering. "No life!"
"All right, what kind of existence, then," Gillian said coldly. "You know what I mean. It stinks. Angel. It's putrid. It's disgusting."
A spasm crossed Angel's face. He whirled away from her. And for the first time since Gillian had seen him, she saw agitation in him. He was actually pacing, moving like a caged animal. And his hair-it seemed to be ruffled by some unseen wind.
Gillian pressed her advantage. "It's about as good as being under there." She kicked at the dead weeds over a grave.
He whirled back, and his eyes were unnaturally bright. "But I am under there, Gillian."
For a moment, her skin prickled so that she couldn't speak. She had to force herself to say steadily, "Under that one?"
"No. But I'll show you where. Would you like that?" He made a grand gesture, inviting her down the stairs. Gillian hesitated, then went, knowing he was behind her.
Her heart was pumping wildly. This was almost like a physical contest between them-a contest to see who could upset the other more.
But she had to do it. She had to make a connection with him. To reach into his anger and frustration and despair and somehow drag answers out of it.
And it was a contest. A contest of wills. Who could shout louder, who could be more merciless. Who could hold on.
The prize was Angel's soul.
She nearly tripped at the bottom of the stairs. It was too dark to see her footing. She noticed, almost absently, that it was getting very cold.
Something like an icy wind went past her-and there was light in front of her. Angel was walking there, not leaving any footprints in the snow. Gillian staggered after him.
They were heading for the newer section of the cemetery. Past it. Into the very new section.
"Here." Angel said. He turned. His eyes were glittering. He was standing behind a gravestone and his own light illuminated it.
Chills washed over Gillian.
This was what she had asked for, it was exactly what she had asked for. But it still made the hair on her neck stand on end.
He was under here. Right here. Beneath the ground. The body of the person she'd loved and trusted... whose voice had been the last thing she'd heard at night and the first thing each morning.
He was under here in some kind of box, unless maybe that had rotted. And he wasn't smiling and golden-haired and handsome. And she was going to find out his name from a stone.
"I'm here, Gillian," Angel said ghoulishly, leaning over the granite marker, resting his elbows on it. "Come up and say hello." He was smiling, but his eyes looked as if he hated her. Wild and reckless and bitter.
Capable of anything.
And somehow, the sick horror that had been sweeping through Gillian disappeared.
Her eyes were full, spilling over. The tears froze on her cheeks. She brushed at them absently and knelt beside the grave, not on it. She didn't look at Angel.
She put her hands together for just a moment and bent her head. It was a wordless prayer to whatever Power might be out there.
Then she took off her glove and gently scraped snow away from the marker with her bare hand.
It was a simple granite headstone with a scrolled top. It read "In loving memory. Our son. Gary Fargeon."
"Gary Fargeon," Gillian said softly. She looked up at the figure leaning over the stone. "Gary."
He gave a mocking laugh, but it sounded forced. "Nice to meet you. I was from Sterback; we were practically neighbors."
Gillian looked back down. The date of birth was eighteen years ago. And the date of death was the previous year.
"You died last year. And you were only seventeen."
"I had a little car crash," he said. "I was extremely drunk." He laughed again, wildly.
Gillian sat back on her heels. "Oh, really. Well, that was brilliant," she whispered.
"What's life?" He bared his teeth. " 'Out, out, brief candle'-or something like that."