by Aly Noble
“Go.”
I turned around to regard Jonah—he was sitting in the center of my bed and regarding me as well. “I want an explanation, you know,” I muttered.
“I know,” he said quietly. “Right now though, you need to go back out to the woods.”
“Believe it or not, I really don’t want to go back out there,” I argued.
“You have to. It’s suspicious if you went out there, found your friend, and came back inside,” he said. As a compromise, he mumbled, “At least go out and wait for the police on the porch.”
“Come with me then,” I demanded as I headed to the door. “You’re not getting out of this that easily.”
“I just saved your life,” he said flatly.
“Yeah, from something you told me wasn’t here to begin with,” I shot back. He grimaced but didn't deny it. “Now,” I said emphatically, mimicking his earlier tone. He groaned and got up to follow me, glancing around warily before exiting the bedroom. His demeanor was making me nervous. “What’s the face for?”
“I'll tell you later,” he murmured as we walked outside.
I realized I hadn’t put a jacket back on when a shiver shook my spine. “Why not now?”
“Because you have to look freaked out for the police when you take them to the woods,” he said, watching me sit on the front steps.
“No problem there,” I mumbled, tempted to take one of Carla's cigarettes from my pocket. My stomach turned as I remembered her body and I found myself hoping that all of whatever had happened to make her look like that had come after she’d already died.
The single cop car we’d heard rolled up into the driveway a few minutes later, two officers unfolding themselves from the low-sitting vehicle after cutting the siren. I watched them walk over to me, both of them looking confused—I wondered what Estelle had told them.
“Are you Miri James?” the shorter officer asked, his brow knitted at the middle.
“I am,” I said with a frown. “My, um... My coworker’s in the woods. She’s... Well, she’s dead.”
Their brows rose in unison. “Is that why you texted your friend and asked her to call us?”
“Yeah, she works with both of us,” I explained. “They both stayed at my house last night, and we thought she’d left this morning because we couldn’t see her car anywhere, but she parked around the side of the house. Then I found her cigarettes and her lighter outside, so I went to look around.”
“Why don’t you show us where she is?” the taller one suggested gently, earning a frightened look from his partner.
Well, there are bits of eight more bodies downstairs, but we'll get to that another day, I thought sarcastically. “Sure,” I said aloud as I got up, realizing when I gripped the rail that my hands were shaking.
“Could you tell what you think happened to her?” the short one asked as I led them toward the river and the trees past it. “I’m Officer Lancer, by the way. And this here’s Officer Holbrook.”
I almost choked when I remembered the look of the corpse, trying to figure out how to describe it as we stepped over the river stones. I hesitated before admitting, “It looked like someone killed her.”
If they hadn't looked alarmed before, they did now. “What makes you say that?” Officer Lancer asked sharply.
“She looked…mangled,” I murmured, looking around to get my bearings before heading along the same path I’d taken when I had a phone to follow.
“How did you locate the body?” Officer Holbrook asked.
“I tried to call her to let her know she’d left her stuff and I could hear the ringing. So I just kept calling the phone until I found her.”
“Must have been a loud ringtone,” Lancer commented.
“Blaring,” I agreed, wondering why that was what he was focusing on. I started to reach for my phone to prove a point, but remembered that it had blown up in the basement earlier when my hand hit an empty pocket.
My stomach liquefied when we found Carla—not because of how horrible she looked, but because of how normal she looked. This wasn’t the body I’d seen earlier. She looked dead, but like she should have in a “regular” circumstance. Not the mangled, grotesquely disfigured corpse I’d first found. She even had her ear back. The only mark on her now was a trickle of blood from her temple. Had that all been an illusion? Had the body been changed somehow when I’d run away from it? The possibilities were making my head spin.
Officers Lancer and Holbrook both looked relieved and like they were feeling a little superior now. Lancer started in first. “Ms. James, I’m real sorry for your loss—however, it should bring some relief to know that your coworker wasn’t murdered.”
“Yeah... It honestly looks like she came out for a walk or to look at an animal—we have a lot of deer around here, ma’am—and she maybe slipped and hit her head,” Officer Holbrook murmured kindly. “It’s surprising how often this kind of stuff actually happens. Usually not fatally, but it’s real easy to do. She must’ve fallen just right."
“Or just wrong,” Officer Lancer corrected him like he was some shitty noir detective and I had the distinct urge to smack him. Clearly used to this, Officer Holbrook just nodded with a pitying look my way.
I tried to rein in my larger reaction. It was no wonder this guy got away with so much if he could pull something like this. Outwardly, I hesitated for a minute's time and then nodded in defeat. “Of course… Right. I just can’t believe it.”
Officer Holbrook patted my shoulder, and I flinched. He assumed I was jarred by the body. “I’m terribly sorry, Miss. Maybe we should wait up by the house…”
“I’ll call the coroner on our way there,” Officer Lancer said, getting out his phone.
We walked back to the house and sat on the porch while we waited for the coroner to arrive. I hung back with Officer Holbrook to answer some questions while Officer Lancer led the newcomers out to the woods to inspect and retrieve Carla’s body. I watched them haul the gurney back across my lawn a while later, feeling my jaw clench. Holbrook cut the mild interrogation short after that and said he’d be in touch before he and Lancer left.
Yellow caution tape had been roped around the area where Carla had been lying since some time last night or early this morning, I figured. Despite Lancer and Holbrook’s certainty of Carla falling and taking the perfect blow to the head, a protocol was still being followed at the very least. When the police duo said their goodbyes and their car disappeared from sight, I rose from my porch steps and went back inside.
“Jonah?” I called as I went upstairs, blinking when I entered my bedroom to find him tossing stuff in a bag. “What are you doing?”
“You should go stay with Estelle. Or Rose,” he said tightly. He looked more haggard than earlier, and I wondered what the hell had happened in the meantime to make him look so out of it. “If the house wasn’t safe before, it really isn’t now.”
I asked why just as the house gave a low moan that didn’t sound entirely natural. I looked at Jonah, who was peering warily up at the ceiling. After his moment of hesitation, he immediately began packing faster. I stepped further into the room. “Jonah, come on—what’s going on? And don’t you dare lie to me.”
He glared down at the bag for a few seconds before taking it to the bathroom. “There’s no time right now—come back in a few days. Not to the house though. Just up to the property line. You should remember where that is from the map,” he instructed in a low voice. “Grab whatever you think you’ll need.”
“How long am I going to be away?” I asked warily.
“Awhile,” he murmured.
“Is Price still alive?” I asked, dreading the answer.
“Yes,” Jonah said.
“How was he able to do all the weird demony shit?”
Jonah packed my toiletry bag and stuffed it in with the clothes, glancing around before going back to the bedroom. “Because he’s fused with an entity—you could call it a demon, I guess. He was, anyway.”
&nb
sp; “Was?” I repeated.
He sighed, realizing these questions were happening now whether we had the time or not. “Pick one more question and make it count. I can answer the rest another day. You need to leave.”
I sorted through my thoughts and put on my jacket from earlier—dark, but still splotched with blood—as he led the way out of the bedroom. I’d watched him pack, and there was nothing that he hadn’t packed that I desperately needed. I grabbed the Patch manuscript and my sketchbook from the living room, stuffing them in my laptop case before slinging that over my shoulder.
We got out to the porch and I finally asked, “What are you?”
He blinked back at me. “I didn’t expect that question just yet.”
“You said one more and make it count,” I pointed out, putting on the backpack, too. “I want to know who—and what—I’m really dealing with.”
Jonah measured me up before nodding once, slowly. “I’m a reaper.”
I felt my eyes widen. “Like the Grim Reaper?”
“The Grim Reaper is a far-fetched variation of the truth—but yes, basically,” he admitted.
“Why can’t I stay here?”
He smirked, and the expression only held a small amount of amusement. “You’re really weaseling answers out. It’s not safe to linger here right now. Especially so close to the house.”
When another moan issued from the structure around us, Jonah’s expression turned severe and he started talking. “Look, this is what I have time to tell you right now. For one thing, yes—Connor Price is still alive and he will be looking for you. However, he’s wounded and human now. That also means he’s got motivation he didn’t have before. The rest of him,” he paused to gesture to the air, “is a part of the house now. The entity needed a place to latch, and it didn’t have a choice but to latch onto the house. I’ve yet to understand why it couldn’t or didn’t attach to you.
“Don’t come back here unless you have to. Even then, I recommend that you don’t. There's a chance that it wasn’t strong enough to take another host after I wounded them both, but it’s healing as we speak. The next time you’re near this place, you’ll be able to feel it and it, you.
“Finally, I’m using valuable time to push my petty agenda—I haven’t been entirely truthful with you, Miri, but I’ve never lied to you. I didn’t know something else was coming and going from this house and I couldn’t figure out why until just a little bit ago,” he murmured urgently. “That thing was soulless. As a reaper, I operate on soul energy and aura. I couldn’t sense it because it didn’t have anything to draw me in with. I swear to you that I didn’t know you were in danger until it was almost too late."
I was still processing all of that when he half-shoved me from the porch. “Go. I’ll explain more next time you’re close. Just the property line,” he emphasized, seeming a little afraid. Which of course made me a little afraid, too. “Don’t come closer. Do not come back to the house.”
I wanted to argue for more information, but I instead found myself nodding a few times and walking to the car while Jonah looked on. I retreated from the driveway and didn’t tear my gaze from him or the house until I no longer had a choice.
• • •
Now only slightly more put together than I’d been two weeks prior, I put one of Carla's cigarettes in my mouth and flicked the lighter, cupping my hand against the flame until it caught. Toeing the property line as I took the first drag, I watched the house with wary eyes—even if Jonah hadn’t told me to stay away from the house, I felt like I would have instinctively shied away on my own.
I'd scarcely blinked, but all it took was an instant. Within the span of that blink, Jonah the Reaper had appeared toe-to-toe with me, his pale face inches from mine when I opened my eyes.
I hardly jolted. Any brief shock I had was internalized. I was finally starting to become numb to being startled after all this time.
I blew smoke in his sallow face. “You never fucking change.”
I’d never seen him throw a more genuine smile my way.
Chapter 21
“You don't look so great,” I observed as I sat down on the grass, flicking ash from my cigarette.
“You're one to talk,” he pointed out, looking at the circles beneath my eyes.
I shrugged. “Hard to sleep when there’s a crazy killer on the loose who may realize where you are at any time,” I said quietly. “Any updates on that, by the way?”
“My reach is as far as the property line,” he admitted. “He hasn’t been back here but once. Otherwise, I don’t know where he’s been.”
“When was he here?” I was kind of dreading the answer, although I felt like no matter what he told me it would be the wrong answer. The only good news would be that he was dead. Truly dead this time, too.
Jonah considered that. “Two days ago? Maybe three.” He looked ill, and I wondered what could possibly make a gh—er, a reaper ill. Maybe being in the same vicinity as the demonic presence that had detached from Price. “The days are kind of running together. More than usual,” he added.
“Because of the demon?”
He nodded. “Because of the demon.”
“Is it stuck there?” I asked, glancing warily toward the house and half-expecting to see something. Thankfully, I didn't.
“For now,” he sighed. “That’s why it’s better that you and everyone else stay out of there until something changes.”
“Is this something to call an exorcist about?” I asked uncertainly.
Jonah shrugged. “I don’t know how much it would actually help. Besides, a genuine exorcist is incredibly difficult to find—it comes down to the individual’s power more than the system affiliated with it.”
“Then what do we do?” I asked edgily. I remembered my cigarette then, which had burnt halfway while I was engrossed in our exchange. I tapped off the excess. “If Hollywood has it wrong, how do we get rid of it?”
He frowned. “I’ll probably have to figure something out. You worry about Price. This would be easier if we knew the entity’s name.”
I took a drag and exhaled it when I had something to say. “I feel like I’ve heard this before—the ‘names have power’ thing?"
Jonah nodded. “The ‘names have power’ thing.”
“Is Jonah your real name?” I asked.
“Of course not,” he said dismissively. “Bethaline just decided to name me one day.”
I smiled at that. “Cute.”
He shrugged. “What can I say? I love that kid.” He considered his words before adding, “I’m also the only reason she’s alive. That creates a bond.”
That surprised me a little, and I remembered our past conversation on this very subject. “Right… You said she died for a few seconds.”
“Six, to be exact,” he confirmed.
“And you’re a reaper,” I added, the tinge of a question in my tone.
Jonah nodded once. “Exactly. It wasn’t her time.”
“And that was your decision to make?”
That made him pause. “In a way. In those cases, sometimes there’s nothing I can do. In that instance, I was able to change things.”
“Then that’s why she can see you?” I asked. Elaborating then, “You said you thought she was just sensitive to apparitions, but that’s when you were still playing a ghost.”
He gave a sardonic lift of his brows. “Right. And no, her sight may be enhanced by her revenant status, but she would have always had it, I think. I’m fairly certain it’s only been me she’s seen so far because I’m the only one she’s crossed paths with.”
“So…,” I murmured after a bit of silence. “Why were you playing a ghost?”
Jonah’s lips twisted a little. “Easier than explaining the truth.”
I cut him off immediately. “Don’t even start with that. You went above and beyond avoiding the truth. A fake accent? A fake head wound? Really?” I put my cigarette out on the bottom of my shoe. “You put on a serious show for som
eone who wasn’t even asking very many questions.”
“You weren’t asking many questions because I was putting on a serious show,” he countered, his jaw clenched.
“For fuck’s sake, Jonah,” I muttered, pulling out another cigarette and pausing in my ire long enough to light it. “What’s the point? Just give me a straight answer for once.”
“I'm about as good as a ghost anymore,” he muttered, and the intonation felt like a knee-jerk. “That’s the bottom line.”
I frowned and considered him before holding out my cigarette. He glanced at it and paused before he took it—the hand that made contact with mine was once again as solid as a human’s. He took a long drag and handed it back.
“Are you alive?” I asked.
“Not in the same way you are,” he replied.
“If you’re not a ghost, why are you just hanging around here?”
Jonah sighed, and the smoke streamed from his nose. “I’m stuck.” Tired of pushing for answers, I just waited until he elaborated. “I lost something important, and I’ve been tethered here ever since.”
“What did you lose?” I asked. Then jokingly threw out, “Your scythe?” He looked a little surprised, but there was no humor in his eyes. “Wait… Seriously?”
“Some things aren’t complete myth,” he murmured. “Yes. My scythe is gone.”
“How’d you lose it?”
Jonah studied me for a moment before shaking his head. “I don’t really remember.”
Well, that doesn't make any sense. “For a reaper, you’re weirdly human.”
He smirked at that. “You’d be surprised at how few differences there are amongst all things.”
“Why don’t you remember? Has it been that long?”
“It’s been a long time,” he agreed, “however, I was injured…somehow. Despite showing you that wound on my skull to stop you asking questions, it’s very real. And it makes things difficult to process sometimes.”
“Like your memories,” I filled in for him.
