The Temptation Of Demetrio Vigil Part 28

"Your brother," I told him. "He's out to destroy you, Demetrio. You have to believe it."

"He was wrong," said Demetrio. "He usually is. Of course I'd come for you, Kelsey."

"Is he still here?" she asked, her voice quaking.

"I haven't seen him," said Demetrio. "He killed you. That means he's probably been taken from this dimension already. Revenants who have been given a second shot at redemption, as we both have, cannot kill a human being, no matter what. If we do, we're sent away, to The Very Bad Place, for all eternity."

I could tell as Demetrio said it that, even after having seen Hilario's handiwork, he was devastated to think of his brother's soul condemned for all time. He had love in his heart, perhaps too much of it.

"He deserves it," I told him.

"He's still my brother," said Demetrio. "And we need to get out of here before someone see us. Ready to go?"

We said we were ready, and crouched with him. Kelsey seemed to be perfectly whole and strong, as we followed Demetrio up and over the bank. I stepped on a sticker, and the ice hurt my feet.

"Ow," I complained.

"Here," said Demetrio, picking me up. He offered to carry Kelsey, too, but she was tougher than I was, and soldiered on in her bare feet. She moved more slowly than Demetrio would have liked, I could tell he was impatient.

That's when we heard the sound of a motor, and looked back toward the trailer to see a hooded figure on an all-terrain vehicle, speeding toward us, bearing down fast.

"Run!" cried Kelsey.

But it was no use. The four-wheeled motorcycle was upon us in no time, in front of us, blocking our path. The hooded figure removed his hood, and revealed himself to be Logan, atop a machine weighed down with all manner of weaponry, including, to my horror, a large crossbow and arrow.

"I knew I didn't like that dude," said Demetrio.

Kelsey put her hand to her neck, and seemed to remember something. "It was him," she said, horrified.

"What?" I asked, as Logan removed himself from the machine, and unsheathed the enormously intimidating hunting knife his father had bought for him when he made the junior Olympic skeet-shooting team.

"h.e.l.lo, Maria, sweetheart," he said to me. "And look who you're with."

"He's the one who killed me," screamed Kelsey. "It was him!"

"Good memory," said Logan, licking the blade of his knife as he looked Kelsey up and down. "You struggled nice and hard, too. Good times, good times."

"Behind me, girls," said Demetrio, grabbing Kelsey and tossing her behind himself, and reaching for me.

Logan swooped down now, however, faster than Demetrio, and grabbed me first, pulling me close to him and placing the blade hard against my neck. I felt it cut me, just a little, and the pain was unbearable.

"Don't do it, man," said Demetrio.

"Don't you have some ghostly superpowers to stop me, Demetrio?" asked Logan, jovially. "Or are you too good too kill, now that you've chosen the path of redemption?"

"I don't think it has to come to that. Kelsey's alive, no one has to know what happened here, just let Maria go."

"Can't you bring her back if I off her?" asked Logan. "I'd get off on that a little."

"Let her go, man. She didn't do nothing to you."

"Oh, but that's where you're wrong. Maria and me, we have a long history. She has lied to me, betrayed me, done so many things to me - even some things I liked, a lot." He said this last part lasciviously.

"Do something!" screamed Kelsey.

"I'm not going to ask again," said Demetrio to Logan, as his eyes slipped over to the other weapons on the ATV. "Let her go."

Logan responded by pus.h.i.+ng the knife deeper into my flesh, and I screamed. That's when Demetrio, moving at, indeed, superhuman speed, in a split second leapt out, removed the crossbow from the ATV, miraculously appeared at the far end of the field from us, where he aimed the weapon and quickly launched the arrow from that great distance, deep into Logan's heart. I remembered Yazzie's story now, about the Arrow Boy. Then, as quickly as he'd moved away, Demetrio was back next to us, catching me as I fell from Logan's now useless arms.

In an instant, Logan was dead, and fallen with a thud to the ground next to me with a look of complete surprise upon his face. Having been pierced directly in the heart, he'd died instantly, and there was very little blood.

"OmiG.o.d, omiG.o.d!" I screamed, astonished and frightened, all of it having happened so fast. "You killed him!"

"He would have killed you," said Demetrio, holding me gently. "I couldn't let him do that."

Demetrio released me now, and stood there in the rain with a terrible look of remorse and confusion upon his face, trembling as though he could not believe what he'd done. He dropped the crossbow in the mud, shaken. Afraid. He looked at me.

"I'm sorry, Maria."

"What? Why? You saved me!" I ran to hug him, but my arms went right through him.

"I'm sorry. I, I have to go now." In a daze, he looked down at his body as it began to twinkle in blue and gold lights, even though it was still daylight out. His voice crackled and began to sound faraway. He took the book and pen from his pocket, and held them as he stooped to pick up the crossbow. "The rules. I can't kill a human. The Maker is pretty clear about that. I'm sorry. I love you."

"Why didn't you just let him kill me, and rescue me like you did Kelsey?" I cried, pawing crazily at the air where he was. "Why does it have to be like this?"

"I'm sorry," he said. "It was the only way."

"Don't leave me," I sobbed as he began to erupt in sparkles of light.

"Maria," he said, fighting to stay with me, watching his own body fade away. "I still believe you are my Kindred Primary. Tell the maker. It might help."

"No!" I cried, trying to hold on to him, but the warmth was fading. I grabbed at nothing but air. He had saved Kelsey, but we were unable to save him.

"Goodbye," he said, as he faded, in a great glimmer of lights, and whatever was left of his body and clothes suddenly turned to dust before our eyes, except for the little book of deeds and the fancy quill pen, which fell to the ground at my feet, with a dark and horrible sound. He'd left it, and taken the crossbow with him.

I fell to my knees, sobbing uncontrollably. Kelsey stood staring at Logan's corpse, stunned motionless. I screamed and wailed. Finally, I grabbed the book, and turned it over in my hands, trying to understand. I flipped through it, amazed that even as raindrops fell upon the pages, they stayed dry.

I read through the words. Each page was a list of names, numbered starting with 1 at the very start; and where there were no names, just descriptions, like "black and white dog," or "red-haired child," with dates, and the deed he had done. They appeared to have been written in a code of some kind, initials, with short descriptions of the situation. An example might have been: Rudy, Kelsey cat, RTL, auto. Or Jason Stein, male 37, SR, bridge jumper. I read through page after page, and tried to understand what the code had stood for. I flipped until I found my own name, with Buddy's, and read the entries.

33. Buddy, black Chihuahua, RTL, car crash 34. Maria Ochoa, female 16, RTL, car crash With a chill, I read them both again. Buddy and I had the same code.

In a panic, I flipped through the book until I came to Nutmeg's entry, and I read it.

Nutmeg, chow dog, RTL, auto.

With goose b.u.mps crawling on my arms, and legs, and up my back, and along my spine, I flipped through the book to the very last page, and read the entry he'd just put down.

399. Kelsey Epstein, female 17, RTL, murdered The initials were familiar to me somehow. I thought, and thought, and remembered that his favorite book had been A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles d.i.c.kens, a book in which a man thought to be a criminal, Dr. Manette, is returned to life, for a second chance.

Returned to Life.

RTL.

"Oh, my, no, no," I whispered. "Kelsey. Kelsey! Come here. Please come here."

"What is it? What's going on?" She unfroze and stumbled over to me.

"That's why," I said, looking at Kelsey in complete and utter astonishment.

"Why what?"

"He had to kill Logan, because I was dead," I told her, my voice barely rising above a whisper.

"You're not making any sense. h.e.l.lo? I'm the one who got killed. Not you."

"Not today, not here, not now. I died in that crash on Highway 14, Kelsey."

We stared at each other as the truth sunk in.

"He never said, it but it's here. Demetrio saved my life that first day. And Buddy's. That's why he had to kill Logan today, because he can't bring the same soul back twice. If Logan had killed me, it would have been forever."

She knelt next to me and hugged me. "He sacrificed himself for you," she said. "I told you he was a good guy."

"Yeah," I said. "You did."

There, in the rain, next to Logan's corpse, I let out a bloodcurdling cry, as the reality hit me - Demetrio was gone, and he wasn't coming back. Unable to betray his brother, even as Hilario plotted his doom, he'd sent his own soul to The Very Bad place, so that I might live.

True to Hilario's plan, Demetrio, the good brother, had been tempted, and trapped, by me, and now he was gone.

It was the second week of January, and my mother stood on the stage, in the large performance hall at Coronado Prep, along with Headmaster Green, Yazzie and other teachers, and two officials from the state police. I stood on the stage as well. So did Kelsey. We all wore our finest clothes, and smiled nicely for the cameras. After all, it was a press conference.

"We are all just terribly aggrieved," said my mother into the microphone, tidy and perfect in her red pantsuit, her hair salon-coiffed earlier that day, "to have to share this news with the good people of the city of Albuquerque. We grieve for the Torero family, and extend to them our deepest condolences in the death of their only son. The killer is still at large, but we believe it to have been another member of the same far-reaching Satanic cult to which young Logan Torero himself so tragically belonged."

Yes, that was the official story. Logan had secretly been part of a Satanic cult. As such, he'd kidnapped me and Kelsey at the dance, to do horrible and unsavory things to us. Kelsey's dress was covered with blood because he and other boys had sacrificed animals on top of her (we gave ourselves extra credit for thinking that one up) and he had been in the process of cutting my throat when one of his own apparently grew a conscience and used his own crossbow to shoot him from across a field.

"These two young girls," droned my mother, "including my own beautiful and talented daughter, Maria Luisa, were beyond brave in the face of this terrible incident. As a mother, I feel wonderful knowing that all of the hard lessons I've taught her about morality, family, G.o.d and safety, all came together in her moment of need to help her escape from what might otherwise have been a most terrible fate."

The crowd broke into applause here, and Kelsey used the opportunity to fake-sneeze the word "perjurer" in my general direction. I cracked a grin, but did not laugh out loud.

"That something of this evil nature could have taken root at a place as wonderful as Coronado Preparatory Academy is sobering, indeed," my mother continued. "As a lawmaker, I take this to mean that none of our children are ever truly safe, until we hold our schools and elected officials to the fire and demand that there be better oversight and education for children about these dark forces among us."

More applause.

"I want to commend the Coronado Preparatory Administration for already implementing sensitivity training for faculty and students around Satanic and cult issues, so that should something like this take sprout again amongst us, we will all be able to recognize it for what it is, and weed it out. What's more, as a city councilwoman, and as the mother of one of the victims, I am going to make sure that this same training is available to every school in our great city, free of charge, so that no family will have to go through what my family has gone through."

Again, deafening applause.

"And now, if you don't mind, I'd like to ask my daughter to step forward, to receive a special gift from me and all of the city councilors, on behalf of the mayor, congratulating her on her quick thinking and survival smarts. Maria Luisa, please come up. You, too Kelsey."

And so it was that as the crowd rose to its feet, and my cla.s.smates joined forces with the local media and political elites to celebrate the lives Kelsey and I both had only because of the bravery and self-sacrificing of Demetrio Vigil, my best friend and I stepped forward to accept the key to the City, silently, on his behalf. Only Yazzie knew that we had agreed to dedicate it to him, and I caught sight of her wiping away a tear as I walked to the side of the stage to pose for photographs. Being alive seemed a strange thing to celebrate, but from where I stood now, most things most of my fellow humans did seemed strange.

Later that day, Yazzie drove me and Kelsey to Golden, to help us drape the chain with the Key to the City of Albuquerque upon the descanso belonging to Demetrio Vigil. As she drove, I told her about the book he'd left behind. Yazzie listened with growing interest, and asked if I had it with me. I did, of course, because I always carried it with me now. It was all I had left of him, and I couldn't bear to part with it.

When she parked at the descanso, before we got out, Yazzie flipped through the book.

"I have heard of these, but never seen one," she said. "It's remarkable that he found the strength to materialize it upon his parting."

"He took the crossbow, too."

"You girls do realize that by doing so, Demetrio saved you both from possible prosecution in Logan's murder?"

"Yes," we said in unison. We had discussed it many times.

Yazzie flipped through the pages, shaking her head in amazement, smiling sadly. She cried as she flipped, and when her tear hit the page along the margin, an amazing thing happened: pale blue words appeared, s.h.i.+mmering on the parchment.

Beautiful work, they said, or Perfect timing.

"Cry some more," Kelsey told her, and Yazzie, almost as good an actress as she was an artist, created more tears, dropping them in the margins of the pages. They illuminated what appeared to be communications for Demetrio, about each of the rescues. Some were encouraging, others were advice on how to do it better next time.

"Who's writing that?" I asked, chilled and excited.

"I believe The Maker of All Things," said Yazzie, softly and reverently. "It is as though the book were a direct method of communicating with The Maker."

"With G.o.d," said Kelsey. "G.o.d writes uplifting greeting card slogans in magic books. That's hard to believe."

"Something like that," I said, echoing Demetrio's own terminology with a smile.

"Why do you think he left it for us?" asked Kelsey.

"I think, Maria, that Demetrio left this as a way for you to perhaps appeal to The Maker on his behalf."

As she said the words, they felt exactly right. "I know that's what it is," I said. "I feel it."

She handed me the book.

"What do I do?"

"Write in it, on a blank page."

"But what do I write?"

"Whatever's in here," she said, touching her heart. "We'll take the key while you do this. You should do it in private."

They left me alone in the Jeep with the book, and I flipped to the first empty page. Then, using the quill pen, I began to write.

I don't know if you can hear me, or see this, but I write to you today to ask that you have mercy on the soul of Demetrio Antonio de los Santos Vigil, who died in this spot and who I came to know and love. He saved my life. He was found to be a kindred to me, a Close Kindred, and we believe we are Kindred Primaries. He did kill a man, but it was done in defense of my life, which he had already saved once. He sacrificed his soul for mine, and I would hope that you might look kindly upon that sort of thing. He doesn't deserve to be in The Very Bad Place, and I very much would appreciate it if you could see about getting him out of these and letting him come back to finish his good deeds, which I know for a fact he really enjoyed. Thank you very much, sincerely, Maria Luisa Ochoa.