Cookie gave Ellie a strange look. She leaned in to Ellie’s ear and whispered, barely audible: “Why are you having a conversation with the damned thing?”
“What’s the harm in talking?” Ellie whispered back. “Besides—isn’t it weird, that it’s here at all? Maybe it does want to stop the end of the world.” She let her eyes gesture back to the Spindle. “It’s not like we have many leads at the moment.”
“If I could save the world on my own, I would not talk to you,” said the demon. “But I and my compatriots have limits. We are unable to fix the Spindle by ourselves.”
Its smile was back. “But then again, so are you. Neither of us can solve this alone.”
“How awfully inconvenient,” said Ellie feeling her patience unraveling like a thread. “How about this: you tell us what you want in plain English, or I’m going to find a broom and swat you down from there. We’ll find our own way to save the world.”
Don’t waste time on this thing, Ellie thought, glancing back. Shawn looked torn between interest and affecting boredom, and Jude was confused, arms crossed. Their eyes met briefly, but Ellie only shrugged and turned back to the demon.
Her threat was probably unnecessary, Ellie noted. Because by the way the demon was beginning to tremble, its spidery legs scrabbling a bit, it would fall soon anyway. And then Cookie would be on it, same as a cat on a rat.
“See?” the thing said. “Violent and murderous thieves.” But then it recovered a bit, its grip tightening, to Cookie’s visible disappointment. “But you make a good point, thief. Time is frozen, but the limited window to act is passing quickly.”
Ellie scuffed her boot, half in impatience, half threat.
“I propose a trade,” said the demon, words a little rushed. “You see the Spindle is broken. We must fix it, or the world will remain ended. When the stars fall, all hope is lost to prevent the completion of the disaster.”
“And how do you know all this?” Cookie demanded. A good question, Ellie thought.
The thing gave the equivalent of a shrug. “Do you not think that my kind is spread over our earth, and that we have heard your kind chattering about this?”
Ellie thought to how reapers often wasted time talking, and conceded this information would be easy to learn. Especially if you were rat-things hiding in cracks.
“Well? What’s your offer?” said Ellie.
“A trade,” said the demon. “I will tell you lot the way to gather up the pieces of the Spindle. Do not be fooled—we know what has happened, we were here. The Spindle controls time and the orbit of the universe. The pieces have fallen throughout the world and are evaporating as we speak. They cannot survive separated from the Spindle.”
Ellie felt her heart sinking, chest caving in at these words. She glanced back at the Spindle, the shattered cracks, missing pieces, one complicated multi-dimensional, multi-temporal puzzle. The pieces had scattered all over the world? Not necessarily a problem for reapers. But there had to be thousands of them...
“Okay,” said Ellie. “So you can tell us how to gather the pieces. But why not gather them yourself?”
“Time,” said the demon. “I said ‘throughout the world,’ did I not? The world is more than the here and now, it is a long snake moving through time. We are retrieving all the pieces in the present, which is most of them. But we cannot move backward.”
Oh. Ellie’s eyes widened.
Time.
Reapers could go back and return to the present. If this Spindle controlled time, and the earth was a four-dimensional object, then some of the pieces would be scattered backwards through time. Time was a location, same as depth, height, and length.
And we are on a limited time budget, she realized. The pieces are evaporating? That means that if we don’t get to them, if any of them evaporated in the past, then we’re sunk. Because you can’t change the past...
And if they aren’t completely gone, then we’re still on the clock. After all, time flow is the same no matter if we go back or go forward. We can’t pop in and out without an equal time loss of the present. If you could consider it a “time loss” in the present, what with time frozen... but we are still moving, as Jude said, so maybe we function on another timeline? Either way, we run the risk of the stars falling. Spend two hours in the past, two hours must elapse in the present. You start running a time deficit.
Jude was right, she thought, when he said this doesn’t make sense. Time is weird.
So the demons get the pieces in the present, and we get the ones in the past. If most of them are in the present anyway, then maybe this can be done—there’s gotta be like millions of these demon things. They can find a couple thousand shards.
Maybe this is possible. In any case, we’ve got to try.
She said, “So tell us how to find the pieces.”
One appendage was raised, like a single finger wagging ah-ah. The demon said, “No, I proposed a trade. A deal. I give you what you need, you give me what I need.”
This sounds like a bad idea, thought Ellie. Sounds like the beginning of literally half of horror movies; a deal with a demon. Those tend to end badly.
Glancing back at Jude and Shawn, Ellie saw the beginnings of comprehension on Jude’s face. He looked like he was figuring out what this rat-thing was, but was unwilling or unable to accept that it was a demon. She remembered him saying: I’m a Christian...
Well, she considered, making a deal with a demon was a bad decision in any religion.
Words from one of her father’s sermons drifted to Ellie, a Bible quotation: For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, only to lose his soul?
But I’m already dead, Ellie realized. Everyone here is already dead—and we’re reapers. Our commissions don’t end. So it can’t ask for our souls. We’re already taken.
In a “sell your soul” situation, reapers like us are immune.
She said, “Okay. So spill.”
“We require a soul,” said the demon. Ellie felt her nostrils flare as she snorted with amusement—and Cookie barked out a laugh. She must have come to the same realization as me, Ellie thought, that selling our reaper souls is impossible.
As if speaking to Shawn, slowly, annunciating each syllable, Ellie said: “Don’t know if you’ve noticed. We’re reapers. No souls to sell—we’re commissioned, dummy.”
“Not you,” said the demon, pointing at the dark man. “Him. We require his soul.”
Ellie turned, glanced back at the corpse with his outstretched hand. “Hate to break it to you, buddy, but nobody’s home. They reaped him already.”
“You have access to the upper floors,” said the demon, tone argumentative, whining. “You could retrieve it for us. He is necessary for this to succeed.”
“I fail to see how one soul can help stop the end of the world,” said Ellie.
The demon let out a sigh. Like it was frustrated, like it was trying to explain physics to a child. It said, “He is the one who ended the world, soul-stealer. If we use his soul, we can ask the Spindle where the rest of it is—like a sniffing dog finding the foxes.”
Ellie frowned. “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
“The Spindle,” said the demon. “He is the one who broke it. He is connected to it.”
Turning, Ellie glared at the dark man as she observed him, again. So it’s you, she thought. This is all your fault. His open mouth looked ready with an excuse. But now she was looking, really looking, and there was something omnious in his expression, something determined, as he stared at the Spindle with his hand outstretched.
As if he knew what he was doing. As if he was aiming for the Spindle to shatter.
A small cloud of rage hovered over her vision, twisting her mouth downward, her insides knotting. Or perhaps the humming energy of the room was shortening her temper. But as Ellie looked at the dark man, and at what he had done to the Spindle, to time itself, she recalled her unspoken words to the demo
n that had held Keith Smithson:
You can have him.
And she knew that if she had the dark man’s soul right now, then she would say these words. Right as she handed him over. If anyone deserved hellfire, it was the guy who ended the world.
It’s your fault, she thought. Everyone dying. My family being reaped before their time. Robbie won’t ever have another birthday. This whole mess. All your fault, bastard.
Who wants to be responsible for ending the world?
Not me, thought Ellie. And if I do nothing to stop it, then I will be responsible for allowing the apocalypse to continue... and I already have too many things to regret.
Chapter Eighteen: Poor Partners for a Poor Deal.
“Besides,” said the demon, clearly seeing that Ellie was wavering, “This man has already sold his soul to us. Bought and paid for. Where do you think he achieved the power to break the Spindle? We make a deal with him, and he uses our power not for fame and fortune and women, as promised, but to end the world. Then your kind sweeps him away before we can use him to locate the Spindle pieces. Tell me, do we not have the right to be aggrieved?”
Ellie opened her mouth to say something awful, something that sounded like: If I could give him to you, I would. But this job is impossible—the mentors aren’t going to let me.
Then Cookie nudged her in the ribs with an elbow, sharp, knocking the breath from her.
Cookie whispered, “What are you doing? This is a trap. This is so a trap.”
“I know,” Ellie whispered back, recovering. “But do you see any other options?”
She herself had not been entirely convinced, but the moment those words left her mouth, clarity seemed to travel with them. If what this rat-thing said was true, even if only part of it was true, then without this deal they were sunk. The Spindle needed to be fixed. But it was in a thousand pieces, some of which were back in time.
This is why, Ellie realized. This is why the mentors here and back home did not even consider fixing the problem. They would need to gather up these pieces, but there are thousands of them, some in different times, and they would need to sacrifice a soul.
A soul.
The reaper’s commission: You are to retrieve the immortal from the mortal, to consign the damned to Hell, to bring the saved to the gate of Heaven, and to comfort the dead.
They would have found the dark man almost immediately, Ellie thought. When time stopped, someone came to check the Spindle, found everything like this, and began reaping. Heck, they might have reaped the dark man just to ask what he did.
And then, if he really did sell his soul, and besides probably just for the crime of ending the world, the reapers here put him into one of the Hells.
Because that was what reapers were supposed to do. Sort souls into an afterlife.
Not use souls. Put them where they belong—not keep them around. Not trade them.
Not even to save the world.
Was this really the case? The idea was staggering. But made sense. Many reapers took the commission seriously. So seriously that they would rather the world end than break the commission’s precepts. For the sake of one man, the world must end.
That was how the mentors would think of this dilemma, Ellie realized.
How stupid... the world would end, because nobody would bend the rules. The world would end, so the reapers could safekeep one man’s soul.
The same man who had ended the world in the first place.
Cookie was staring at Ellie’s face, her own marred with a frown of disbelief. She said, voice high and strained, “Ellie. What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking,” said Ellie, “that if this guy ended the world, then he kind of deserves to be chewed on by demons.”
“Ellie,” Cookie said, barely audible. “No.”
Before Cookie could stop her, Ellie turned to gaze up at the thing. “We’ll take the deal.”
“No,” Cookie said, shouting, grabbing Ellie by the arm, “No, we won’t. No deal.”
“You have a better idea?” Ellie demanded. She saw that her friend was about to shoot back with more refusals, so she interrupted: “Cookie. We don’t have a choice.”
And Cookie whirled on her, stepping close, so close that their noses were almost brushing. Ellie was used to looking up at most people, but Cookie, with her fourteen-year-old body, was an exception. She said, “No, Ellie. There is always a choice.”
“Okay,” Ellie said. “So our choices are: take the deal, possibly save the world, or don’t take the deal, the world ends, everybody dies. Real good choices, there.”
Cookie’s mouth opened, but only a huff of air came out. She inhaled, and Ellie saw, in the corner of her vision, Cookie’s hands grip at both her wrists. If the humming of the broken Spindle was not so loud, Ellie knew that she would hear the pitter-patter of Cookie’s blood soaking through her gloves and hitting the stone floor.
Ellie’s scarf felt rough, bristled, as if it had nettles inside facing her skin. She knew what it was to deal with this sort of thing—so she waited for Cookie to regain bearings.
At last Cookie seemed to find her voice. She said, low enough that only Ellie could hear through the noise, “This is not going to work. Nothing good will come from this.”
“Do you see any other allies?” Ellie demanded, gesturing. “Look what we got—a freaky monster human thing, a psycho, a do-gooder, and a sullen bitch.” But those last words, describing herself, caught Ellie off-guard. She spoke without thinking first.
Recovering, she heaved in a breath, “And look what we’re up against. Mentors, upstairs. Every other reaper, who is happy—they were celebrating—and then there’s that.” She jabbed her finger, like a sword point, jousting at the Spindle. “You said it yourself; ever tried to fix a glass vase? We need all the help we can get, Cookie.”
“This is a mistake,” said Cookie. “We’re going to make things worse.”
“It’s the end of the world!” Ellie shouted, words bursting. “It can’t get any worse!”
“It can always get worse,” Cookie replied, voice firm, words clear despite the humming.
There was a long stretch of silence, as Ellie stared at her. Cookie stared back. And Ellie realized that she had never quite had a fight with Cookie like this one. In those early days, Ellie had lashed out often, at everyone and everything, including Niles, until she had learned that did not work on Niles. She had learned the same was true of Cookie.
Sometime in the last three years, she had grown accustomed to Cookie being there, no matter what mood Ellie was in. To always having something flippant or profound to say, knowing when to change the topic, or to just take Ellie’s snarling and put up with it.
Cookie was like a stone wall, immovable, safe, and in that moment, as she thought back, Ellie thought she saw what Cookie’s assignments did: the little mother, who was there to calm their fears and welcome them home. Always-grinning Cookie Williams, reaper extraordinaire. If mentors were promoted through the ranks, rather than made, Ellie had always thought that Cookie would be an excellent mentor someday.
But now Cookie looked nothing like herself. She was all of fourteen years old, reaching out a hand and pulling at Ellie’s sleeve, her eyes wide and wet like a newborn, trembling, searching, trying to make sense of everything in the wide world.
“Ellie,” she said, just the one word. The pause stretched, as she peered at Ellie’s face. Looking, Ellie realized, for Ellie’s resolve to falter, for her to give in and tell Cookie there was another way. But there was no other way. Ellie let her face say as much.
Without another word, Cookie’s expression clouded, drawing closed like storm shutters. She turned and walked to stand behind Shawn. The sag of her shoulders was familiar—in a flash, Ellie recalled the same look from Keith Smithson, when she had told him that the past was unchangeable and no matter what his younger self would confess.
Those shoulders read: I can’t stop this, but I�
��m not going to be forced to witness it.
But she did not leave. Cookie just stood there. Waiting for it to be over. A small flicker of warmth sprouted in Ellie’s chest—even as much against this as Cookie was, she was still here. Perhaps she was serious when she said she would come along to keep them out of trouble. Keep Ellie out of trouble, anyway. She was staying.
Under protest. But staying nonetheless.
Ellie glanced at her other two companions, but neither of them looked ready to object. Jude looked uncomfortable, glancing between Ellie and Cookie, but considering that he did not know either of them well, he was probably having trouble reading the situation.
Shawn’s expression was puzzling. He seemed afraid. But he had never been afraid of demons before—if anything, he had seemed to find them amusing.
There was a wet, choking sound from behind Ellie, and she whirled just in time to see the rat-thing’s scrawny neck bulging, its cheeks swelling. There was something moving inside it, then the lips widened and it choked up a glowing diamond.
The thing spat the stone onto the floor, and Ellie stepped back, disgusted.
“What is that?” she demanded, staring at the stone in the middle of the wet spot. Its glow was fading, but still there. More worrisome was the small puddle of spit.
“A peace offering,” said the demon, a little hoarse. “To show we mean business.”
Cautiously, Ellie stepped forward. Would be just her luck, she thought, if this was a trick and the damned thing leaped onto her head, her neck, as she was retrieving the stone. But the demon seemed aware that attacking like that would be pointless—Ellie would be scared, but not truly hurt, and besides she would stomp with vengeance.
She bent over and scooped up the stone with her fingers. It was slimy. Gross, Ellie thought, moving her lips around the word. But on closer inspection, she was looking at something like a piece of rough jade, lit from within. The feel of it was like bar soap.
“Go on,” said the demon. “Add it to the Spindle.”
Frowning up at the thing, Ellie turned around and approached the Spindle. As she did, she felt the shard beginning to warm—and she realized it had been warm at the start, but only became more noticeable as she neared the tomb.
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