Reaper Reborn

by Kel Carpenter

  “Death is everywhere and nowhere. They exist in every realm.”

  “That’s not a real answer,” I said. “You’re delaying.”

  “As are you,” Aurora shot back. “You haven’t made up your mind about Thana. Not truly. The abomination still walks the Earth and the realm of spirits because you won’t do what needs to be done.”

  “You call her an abomination, but what’s her crime? Existing. She may not be a good person, but—”

  “You make excuses for her even when the truth looks you in the eye. Thana isn’t simply a bad person. She’s the worst. She’s convinced Death is the monster—but answer me this, Salem. If Death wanted you dead, why have they waited so long? If they were hunting you and had found you, why not just be done with it? Why ask for the abomination at all?”

  “I—it—”

  Her eyes hardened. “Ask Thana how the Black Plague was started.”

  When I looked in her eyes then, I saw something I never noticed before.

  Something old. Something ancient.

  Cold crept through my veins and I shivered as the truth hit me in the face as hard as a slap, because I knew right then—I’d been staring at Death all along.

  Death was them. All of them.

  “Death is everywhere and nowhere. They exist in every realm,” I whispered back.

  A cold smile curled her lips. “Very good, Daughter.”

  Pink light exploded up out of the box on the floor, practically blinding me.

  The house shook. Esme stumbled.

  By the time we both recovered, Aurora was gone.

  “No,” Esme wailed, holding up shattered metal pieces that used to be part of her trap.

  “Guess she didn’t want you to be able to do that again.”

  “Clearly,” Esme said with a sigh, tossing the metal shards onto the couch. “So what do we do now?”

  “Fuck if I know,” I muttered, but plans were already forming in my mind.

  This whole time, Death had been watching me. Keeping tabs on me. Biding their time before revealing who they really were.

  This was another test; to see what I’d do and where my head was at. My anger spiked. I was tired of being a pawn in everyone else’s games.

  Just once it would be great if I was the one pulling the strings and in control of my own life.

  But maybe, just maybe, there was a way.

  If Death refused to talk, I knew someone that would.

  “Thana!” I shouted.

  “You’re too late,” the voice beside me said, but it wasn’t Esme, nor was it Thana.

  It was Shepard.

  I turned toward my brother. Pity reflected on his ghostly features.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked quietly. Dread twisted my stomach into knots. I didn’t know what she’d done, but judging by the expression on his face, I knew it was bad.

  “She got tired of waiting for you to give her an answer,” he said. “She decided to make the choice easier for you.”

  “Easier?” I repeated. “Easier how?” A hard edge entered my tone. I didn’t like the sound of that.

  My answer came in the form of pain.

  It erupted from my chest. I looked down.

  Blood saturated my shirt. My knees wobbled, then collapsed as pain so intense it was blinding settled over me.

  Arms grabbed my upper body. I blinked rapidly, trying to clear the spots from my vision.

  “Stay with me, Salem,” my aunt said, her voice calm.

  “What happened?” I rasped. The last thing I saw before true darkness took me was my brother’s gray eyes, his expression grim.

  “War,” he whispered.

  17

  Havoc

  I opened my eyes and the world was washed in gray.

  “Goddamnit!” I snapped. Shepard’s form stood in front of me. “Where’s Graves?”

  My brother inclined his head, jutting his chin toward my left shoulder.

  I turned. “Who killed you?” I demanded.

  “Thana,” he spat my soul sister’s name like a curse.

  I wish I could say I was surprised, but that would be a lie. If anything, part of me was just a little sad that the nagging voice in the back of my mind had been right. I wanted to trust her, but I knew she was bad news from the moment she stepped into the graveyard.

  “How?” I asked. “Why?” The questions poured from my lips. I needed answers.

  “She showed up at the Grimm house leading the other supes. They had Gerard in tow. Or, well, his head.” Graves looked away. “Her hair was dyed pink.”

  That bitch.

  “She’s pretending to be me.”

  Graves nodded.

  Shepard sighed. “You were given a week and time is running out. Thana tried to convince you, and after killing Eli, she realized you were too stubborn. She felt you needed motivation.”

  “What the fuck does that even mean?”

  “You care,” my brother said, coming to stand next to Graves and me. Or, well, float. “Too much, in her opinion. She went and found Gerard and brought him back. Dropped him at the feet of the Council and claimed the reapers were hiding him. The wolves were furious because they felt betrayed. The rest of the supes were angry because they felt lied to. They marched on Gamma Rho, and as far as the reapers were concerned, you were leading the charge.”

  “Fuck.” I put my head in my hands. “I’ve gotta stop her—”

  “Wait,” both Graves and Shepard said.

  Without listening, I focused on the Gamma Rho house and it appeared before me.

  I shuddered. Flames consumed the frat house. Windows were smashed. Bodies littered the ground. Cops were storming the scene. Screams merged with the roar of fire.

  Havoc. It was complete and utter havoc.

  And there, right in the middle of it, stood my doppelgänger. Her hands behind her back, metal handcuffs glinting on her wrists.

  Two reapers were leading her toward the cop car beside me.

  Thana looked up, and then she smiled.

  “You fucking bitch,” I hissed, hoping she could hear me.

  The glint in her eye told me it didn’t matter if she could. She already thought she’d won. She’d played me.

  Graves moved closer, trying to soothe me with his presence. But I was beyond being soothed.

  “Salem,” Shepard said in a warning tone.

  “Don’t.”

  “I recognize that look. Now’s not the time to go off the deep end.”

  “Now is exactly the time to go off the deep end. Thana just started a fucking war and made me out to be its ringleader. And for what? To convince me to spare her? All she did was paint a target on her back.”

  “She’s trying to separate you from the things—the people—that matter to you. She wants to prove that in the end, she’s the only constant in your life,” Shepard said quietly.

  I turned away from the flames and faced my twin. “She’s wrong.” My eyes shifted from Shep to Graves. “That might have been true once, but not anymore. Thana killed Graves thinking that the proof of his mortality would help me get over him. She’d said as much to me before. What she didn’t count on was the blood rite. Graves is no more mortal than I am.”

  Graves and I stared at each other, sharing a look so intense it consumed me. After everything we’d been through, Graves and I were bound more tightly than Thana could ever hope to be. She might have been born from a piece of my soul, but any claim she had to me went up in flames with the Gamma Rho house.

  Shepard cleared his throat. “As touching as it is to watch you two eye-fuck each other, I’m pretty sure we have bigger problems right now.”

  I let out a crazed laugh. “You think?”

  My twin sighed. “Salem, you need to find me a body.”

  I blinked at him incredulously. “You really think after all of this”—I threw my hand toward the destruction behind me—“that you coming back to life is my number one priority? I need to clear my name. I have to tr
y and undo—”

  “Salem,” Shepard started in a voice so serious it stemmed my flow of words. “The dead cannot interfere.”

  I rolled my eyes. “So you keep saying, not that Death seems to play by their own rules.”

  “No, Salem. The dead cannot interfere.”

  “Repeating yourself isn’t going to push you up the to-do list, Shepard. Stop being so fucking selfish.”

  He threw his hands up in the air and spun to Graves. “Please talk some sense into my pig-headed sister. I’ll be around when you finally figure it out.” With that, Shepard vanished, leaving Graves and me alone in the spirit realm.

  “What do you want to do now?” he asked gently. “When we come back, we’ll be in two separate places, and you’ll be public enemy number one. I’m not going to be able to shield you from this. We need a game plan.”

  I released a pained breath from my chest.

  “We need to find a way to trap Thana. If I can’t take her out of the equation, I’ll never be able to do damage control.”

  Graves nodded. “Alright, how do you plan to trap someone that can literally walk between Earth and whatever this is?”

  “The in-between,” I supplied.

  “Right.”

  I turned, staring at the flames. I had no idea how many people had died or if they had bodies at all anymore. I really did need to find out how to bring someone from the in-between back to life. There had to be a way. If Thana thought Death was controlling the ghosts and managed to bring them to life when they’ve been dead for hundreds of years, there was a way to bring people out of the in-between. I just had to find it.

  Unfortunately for all the supernaturals that had died today, I had no idea how.

  What I did know was that somehow my aunt had managed to trap a ghost—which was actually Death.

  Maybe there was a way to trap gods, or at least demigods.

  “I need to talk to Esme,” I said. “I think she can help.”

  “Okay.” He nodded. “What then? If Thana breaks out before you have a chance to trap her, they’re going to come to your house. You need a place to lie low.”

  “I could stay with Tamsin.”

  “Too obvious.”

  Ugh. He wasn’t wrong.

  “What about your place?” I asked.

  Graves hesitated. “It’s not that I don’t want you to . . .” he started. Hurt flashed through me in the form of anger.

  “Well where the fuck can I go if not Tamsin’s or your place? We don’t have enough time, and I can’t spend it hiding in the in-between while we try to figure out what to do.”

  “Look, I want you to come to my place, but there are really big odds they’ll look there after the mansion and Tamsin’s. Especially when they learn I didn’t actually die after being mauled to death by werewolves.”

  I pressed my lips together. “Did you die in front of Thana?”

  He nodded.

  “Fuck,” I cursed. “You need to lie low too, then. She’s going to know something is up if you come back without a scratch on you. We need to disappear.”

  “Getting me out of here without being seen won’t be easy . . .” He trailed off. “My body’s in the house.”

  “The house currently on fire?”

  He nodded.

  Double fuck.

  “Then I need to call Tamsin. She can use her succubus mojo to help get you out of here. We’ll meet up at the graveyard in case Thana decides to make a run for it sooner rather than later.”

  “Alright,” Graves agreed. “But Salem—you need to be careful. We didn’t die this time, but Thana and Death both know how to kill us for real.”

  I nodded. “Yeah, I need to figure out how to do that, and quickly. Before anyone else dies.” With one last look at the flames, I said, “See you on the other side.”

  Graves’ lips touched my temple before I disappeared.

  My body sat on the ground of the mansion, Esme beside it. She was poking me with a broad range of objects, not seeming all that worried that her niece was dead.

  I shook my head.

  At least some things were still the same. Can’t say I ever thought I’d love my aunt’s weird-ass quirks.

  I leaned over and touched my cheek.

  In the blink of an eye, I went from standing over myself to gasping as I came back to life.

  “Ah ha!” Esme called. “Just as I predicted!”

  “What?” I asked, pushing myself to a seated position.

  Esme grinned at me. “I was testing out a few of my more obscure ghost detectors. I figured if I found the right tool, I’d be able to predict the exact moment your soul returned to your body.”

  “By poking me?”

  My aunt nodded. “This last one started to vibrate when I placed it against your skin and then not even a second later your eyes opened.”

  I raised an eyebrow at her. “How exactly is that helpful?”

  Esme shrugged. “I don’t know yet, but you have to admit, it’s fascinating.”

  I shook my head and wrapped my arms around her, giving her a tight hug. If she was surprised by the unexpected embrace, she didn’t show it. Esme squeezed me back and patted my head.

  “Never change, Aunt Esme.”

  She chuckled and pulled back to look at my face, brushing some hair off of my forehead. “I don’t think I’d know how to. Now, tell me what happened.”

  Anger surged, wiping out everything else. “Thana happened.”

  Esme’s lips dipped into a frown, and her eyes went cold. It was the same look she got whenever she picked up her machete. I was starting to recognize it as Esme’s ‘cut-a-bitch’ look. “What did she do?”

  “More than I can explain right now. We don’t have much time. Esme, do you think we could fix your ghost trap?”

  She looked thoughtful. “I don’t think so. The structure is no longer intact, and while I could weld it, the enchantment in the metal was likely lost. But,” she added before I could let out the string of curses building inside me, “Richard mentioned that the device doesn’t matter as much as the enchantments themselves.”

  “So we don’t need a box?” I asked, trying not to get my hopes up. So much was riding on this plan working.

  Esme shook her head. “No. Technically any object would do. Hell,” she broke off with a laugh, “even a room could act as the trap, as long as the magic was in place.”

  I glanced around the living room, a dark smile curling my lips. “Esme . . . call Richard. Tell him to bring his magic kit—or whatever it is he needs to make one of these traps.”

  Esme matched my smile. “On it.”

  “Oh, and Esme?”

  “Yes, dear?”

  “Tell him we’re not trying to trap a ghost this time. So make sure he brings something strong enough to trap an immortal.”

  It was impossible to miss the excited sparkle in my aunt’s eyes. She lived for this kind of thing. Monster hunts. Supernatural fights. As long as she got to carry a weapon, she was down, no questions asked. It wasn’t lost on me that she was more cut out for this life than I was.

  Who knew crazy Aunt Esme would turn out to be my greatest asset?

  18

  Fuck Up

  On the third ring, Tamsin picked up.

  “I need your help,” I said, before she could even get a word in.

  Sirens and screaming echoed through the speaker on the phone. Tamsin was uncharacteristically silent.

  “Tam?” I asked, worry bubbling up. What if something happened to her—

  “Yeah, I heard you.” Her voice sounded thick. Raw. Emotion coated her tone, but it didn’t sound like worry. It sounded like . . .

  “Are you okay?” I asked slowly. Across the room, Esme was speaking in low whispers, but the sexual purr of her voice made me nauseous. For fuck’s sake, Esme.

  “You fucked up, Salem,” my best friend said. A non-answer if there ever was one.

  Message received. She was far from okay.

  “It wa
sn’t me. I know she looks like me and probably found a way to sound like me, but—”

  “You think I don’t know that?” Tamsin hissed. “You’ve been my best friend since we were kids. I know she wasn’t you. It doesn’t change what happened here. My mom is dead, Salem.”

  I nearly dropped the phone.

  My heart pounded. My fingers felt cold.

  I’d dealt with enough loss that Sarah Cunningham’s death didn’t really hit me. It was my empathy for Tam’s situation that did. I knew what it was like to lose a parent. I’d never wish that on her. Not in a million years.

  “I can try to bring her back,” I said quickly. “There might be a way—”

  “But you don’t know, do you?” she asked.

  My silence spoke volumes.

  “I know there is a way. We just have to find—”

  “This never would have happened to begin with if you’d just told the Council what you were and who she was. Everyone hates you now, Salem. The reapers, the wolves, even the succubi think you played us—and I can’t tell them what happened here because of your stupid fucking secrets. My mom is dead because of you.”

  Anger. So much anger.

  And it wasn’t undeserved.

  I swallowed thickly. Wishing I had a way to make this better.

  I had to find a way to fix this before Death and Thana tore my whole life apart at the seams.

  “I’ll find a way,” I whispered.

  She laughed, but it was a hollow, bitter sound. “I hope so, because if not . . .we’re the ones that will pay the price.”

  Her words were like the cut of a knife. Each one inflaming my guilt over how I’d handled the situation, and my anger toward Thana and Death for causing it.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered into the phone line.

  “Sorry doesn’t make it better,” my best friend replied.

  Nothing was going to fix this thing between us until I found a way to bring her mom back and repair what I’d broken to begin with.

  “Look, I hate to ask this, but I do need your help.”

  The sound of muffled cries, shouts of vengeance, and general crisis filled the gap where silence should be.