“Great. Take me there.”
I shove the bagel into my mouth. It tastes like sand, but I’m so hungry I choke it down. I try to wash it down with the coffee, but when I put the cup to my lips, it’s empty.
“Oh, come on!” I yell, pouting like a child. “That’s not fair!”
“He warned you.” If a dog can shrug, Zeus does exactly that. “And you can eat food down here. It just tastes like garbage.”
“Or sand,” I mutter bitterly. “Fantastic.”
I dump my coffee and bagel in a trash can and follow Zeus’ lead onto a pedestrian bridge that crosses a major six-lane highway. There’s a young man on the edge of the bridge, looking down at the traffic passing by beneath him.
“Oh, no. He’s going to jump.”
Zeus sits down and watches. “Yep.”
“I can’t—”
“You can and you will.”
“But…”
“Sacha, are you going to argue over everything? You are here to reap souls. That means they have to die first. That means you have to watch them die first and not intervene.”
He sounds impatient with me. I know he’s right. I also know that I might have to let these souls die, but I don’t have to watch.
The man steps off over the railing and plummets down onto the pavement. Horns blare and tires squeal, then the man is standing on the bridge again, staring down in horror as his body is ground up under the tires of an 18-wheeler.
I’m so glad I didn’t look. I don’t like the idea of vomiting sand again.
I don’t want to get any closer to the edge, because I really don’t want to see the mess on the pavement. But I creep a little closer and glance at the list.
“Paul Riley?”
The man looks at me, completely aghast. “What did… What did I do?”
“You jumped,” I say softly, my voice heavy with regret. “Committed suicide.”
“I…” He looks down. “Is that me?”
“It was.” I try to offer him a friendly smile and keep my voice low. “You need to come with me.”
He’s totally in shock. I don’t know why he’s so surprised. I mean, he’s the one who jumped. It’s not like I pushed him.
“What?” he asks, blinking at me like a dazed owl.
“You need to come with me,” I repeat, hoping I sound like I actually know what I’m doing.
“Who are you?”
I sigh, not quite sure how to go about this. “My name is…”
Zeus clears his throat and shakes his head, giving me a pointed look. Okay, I guess names are bad.
“…not important,” I finish hurriedly. “I’m here to take you to your next stop.”
Paul backs away from the edge and comes over to me. I have no idea how to get back to Death, and I look at Zeus, hoping he’ll help. He just stares at me, his tail wagging, almost like he’s challenging me to figure it out.
Right. So I just, sort of, wish it to happen?
I close my eyes, tense my body, and try not to whisper ‘there’s no place like home’ over and over.
That feeling of the world going sideways happens again, then I’m standing in the white mist with Paul Riley at my side, gaping at the place like a fish out of water. I must have looked a lot the same when Charon brought me here the first time.
Death is leaning against his desk, looking like a sexy ink stain on white paper. He nods to me. “Very good. You’ve done well.” He turns to Paul. “You must come with me. It’s time to weigh your heart and see what destiny awaits you.”
Paul turns around and looks at me like I’m going to save him. Sorry, buddy, you’re on your own. Death waits patiently, and it’s pretty obvious that this guy isn’t going anywhere until I tell him it’s okay.
I gently touch his shoulder. “Go ahead. You’ll be fine.”
Reluctantly, he turns away and follows Death into the Room of Mirrors. I’m not sure what to do now, so I observe a moment of respectful silence. The dude just splattered himself like a rotten tomato all over I-75. I should give him at least that much.
Zeus looks up at me, waiting for me to say something. I’m at a loss, but I mumble, “So, uh…how did I do?”
A familiar and unwelcome voice answers behind me. “You managed not to screw it up completely,” Deacon snarls, walking in with Hades at his side. “That’s got to be some kind of miracle.”
“Miracles are something completely different,” Zeus tells him, “and nothing that either of you will be capable of performing.”
Deacon walks up to me and crosses his arms.
I’m still irritated with him. Just looking at his smug, handsome face annoys me. “You could have waited for me, you know. I thought you were supposed to help me.”
Deacon shrugs, running a hand through his messy auburn hair. “I had a soul to deliver. I wasn’t going to wait around for you to figure out which way was up.”
Of course he would ditch me the first chance he got. He clearly can’t stand the sight of me.
We wait in silence for a minute. I’m getting impatient. “What’s going on in there?”
Deacon shakes his head. “What do you think? He’s weighing the hearts of the souls we brought back. Mine’s totally going to Heaven. Yours? Not so much.” He sniffs. “Suicide. Straight ticket down.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” I argue. “I mean, that’s totally not fair. If someone kills themselves, it’s because they’re suffering. They shouldn’t be punished for doing something when they’re not in their right minds.”
He shrugs. “I don’t make the rules, dumb ass. Actions have consequences.”
“And what’s the consequence for you leaving me behind when you’re supposed to be helping me?”
Deacon looks at me hard, and it’s absolutely wrong that a guy who’s this much of a tool should have eyes that pretty. “For me? None. I do what the fuck I want. I’m not here to babysit your ass.”
Zeus snorts, and Hades gives his brother the stink-eye.
I notice Deacon is wearing a silver tie tack that’s shaped like a skull and crossbones.
“Theme dressing?” I ask, pointing to it.
He looks down, and he actually seems taken aback. “Oh. That’s, uh…that’s part of the stage wardrobe.”
That’s intriguing. “Stage wardrobe?”
“Yeah. I’m a musician…” His face sort of buckles in on itself and then he’s frowning again. “Or I was.”
“What kind of musician?”
“Guitarist. Bass.”
Interesting. I didn’t figure him for the artistic type. “What sort of music did you play?”
“Dark wave, mostly.”
“So, like, goth music? Shouldn’t you be rocking some guyliner or something?”
Deacon actually blushes. It rises up his neck and into his dimpled cheeks. “I’m allergic.”
I can’t help laughing. “Oh, man! That sucks!”
“Yeah. I was really good, too.” He looks away. “I haven’t played since I got here. You don’t know how hard it is to give up on something creative, even if it’s only for a short while.”
“Trust me, I do.” He looks at me in surprise, like it never occurred to him that I might have a talent of some kind. That’s irritating. “I was accepted to the School of American Ballet, full ride, but I had to quit for my family. So, yeah, I totally get it.”
“Ballet?” He sounds equal parts fascinated and repulsed, his face contorted.
“Yes. Ballet. As in, tutus and toe shoes and the Sugar Plum Fairy.”
He makes another face. “That’s so lame.”
I turn my back on him and cross my arms. Just when I think he can actually be pleasant for a moment, he acts like a jerk again.
There’s a long, uncomfortable silence. Hades scratches, and his nails in his fur make the only sound in the lobby. The whiteness and the heavy mist are getting oppressive.
I walk over to the desk and look around. There’s nothing on top of it, and the drawers w
on’t open. I would have hoped for some kind of day planner or a desk calendar with cute pictures of cats or something, but no dice.
“You’re pretty nosy, aren’t you?” Deacon comments.
“I’m bored.”
“Well, get used to it. This is the afterlife.”
I sigh and give up on finding something interesting on the desk. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to this.”
“You’d better,” he advises. “It’s not like anything is ever going to change…at least not until you give up and admit that I’m the proper apprentice and you should just go on to wherever it is you’re going. You can go to Hell for all I care.”
He’s being a total pain in the backside again. I can tell he’s doing it on purpose. It’s not just that he’s a generally unpleasant person, because that seems to be true, too. He’s genuinely trying to annoy me into quitting.
He doesn’t know me very well.
“I’m not going to give up,” I tell him firmly. “In fact, I think I might like this. I’m totally going to be his apprentice. Maybe you’re the one who should give your heart up and move on.”
“You’d like that, wouldn't you?”
“The way you’re acting now?” I nod. “Yeah. I would.”
Death returns with both souls—Paul Riley and Thomas Hilton—and escorts them to the staircase going down.
The look on Deacon’s face is priceless.
“Heaven, huh?” Zeus drawls, shooting me a wink.
“There…there must be some mistake,” Deacon stammers out.
“Death doesn’t make mistakes,” Hades advises coldly. He sounds like he should have a stogie clamped between his teeth.
After a minute, Death returns.
I walk right up to him. “What’s the deal? Why did Paul get sent down to Hell? He was hurting, and what he did wasn’t really his fault.”
Death looks at me as if I’m a raving lunatic. I get that a lot. “Are you referring to the suicide or the murder?”
I blink. “Pardon?”
“He killed his sister out of jealousy. The suicide was incidental.”
“But…he… Wow, that’s dark.”
Death smiles and ruffles my hair like I’m six years old. That is not the way I want him to touch me…and I realize that when I think about him touching me, I get all quivery inside.
He can also read my thoughts, and now I want to fall through the floor all over again. However, if he heard me thinking impure thoughts, he has the grace not to mention it.
“Not every person in life can be good. It’s part of the balance that I spoke of before. Good and evil, light and shadow—neither can exist without the other. There will always be evil men, and there will always be Hell for that reason.” He gives me a look of profound compassion, which sort of surprises me. “I understand your disappointment. You had a heart of gold, after all, which means you want the best for everyone.”
Everybody but Deacon, I think sullenly.
Death’s smile turns into a full-blown grin, and I know he heard me that time.
He doesn’t grin for long. Instead, he looks at the both of us. “It’s time for you to return to earth. There are more souls that you must retrieve.”
He pivots and starts to walk away, but I stop him before he can escape. “Can I…”
Death turns with another devilish smile on his face. “Yes, Sacha?”
“Can I eat something? Anything? Because I’m hungry as all get-out, but when I tried to eat a bagel down on earth, it was awful. I still have bits of sand on my tongue.”
Deacon’s eyes gleam. “Now that’s funny. A possible apprentice who can only think with her stomach?”
“Well, excuse me. I died hungry,” I snap, giving an exaggerated huff. There’s a strong possibility that I’m quickly transitioning from hungry to hangry, but I’m not going to tell him that.
Death stands with his hands behind his back again. “While you’re here in the Plainlands, anything you can imagine can become real. If you want a pot of coffee, imagine it, and it will become real. As I told you, you can drink as much as you want. If you want a meal, imagine that, too. Anything your mind can envision can be created here.”
“How is that possible?” Deacon asks, the disbelief visible on his face.
“Because here in the Plainlands, the only thing that really exists is Time.”
He turns and walks back toward the silver doors. “That’s not an answer, Boss,” I retort, though I’m totally struggling not to imagine a buff masseur giving me a full body massage right now, while a chef cooks me something delicious to eat.
This time, Death doesn’t turn around. “It is. You just don’t understand it yet.” He opens the door. “Go. Your next soul is waiting.”
He goes into the room with the mirrors and shuts the way behind him. I want to barge in after him, to ask him to help me understand, but he told us to get back to work.
I heave a sigh and face Deacon. “Hopefully this time you…”
I was going to say, ‘stay with me,’ but the little brat and his dog are already gone.
Unbelievable!
Zeus takes me to the location where I’ll find my next soul.
There’s a busy sidewalk that runs right underneath a scaffold, and the pedestrian path is marked out with plywood walls. Workers stroll back and forth on top of the iron rigging, building a new facade for a storefront that they’ve covered up with huge green tarps. Stacks and stacks of bricks stand on the sidewalk on the other side of the plywood barrier, and more bricks are on top of the scaffolding with the masons.
“That doesn’t look very safe,” I comment, my palms turning sweaty at the sight. “Somebody should call OSHA.”
Zeus glances at me. He clearly thinks I’m one hamburger shy of a Happy Meal. “Why do you think we’re here?”
“Oh, yeah. To collect a soul, which means somebody here is going to die.”
Yippee.
“I just hope this one isn’t gross,” I add. “Like maybe a heart attack or an aneurysm or something.”
“Death is rarely pretty, as you yourself proved,” Zeus points out. He trots toward the green tarp and looks up. “The next name on the list. What is it?”
I’ve been holding the scroll in my hand this whole time, and it’s been getting mangled. I think I’ve been clenching it a little tightly. I unroll it and read.
“Janusz Strembriski.” I look around. “Are we in Poland?”
“No,” Zeus answers. “We’re in Chicago.”
“So how is this guy supposed to croak?”
He lifts his nose toward the scaffolding. “Like you said, this isn’t very safe. The scaffolding is going to collapse, and your soul will have a very unfortunate afternoon.”
“Which one is he?”
Zeus’ ears point forward, and he looks straight at an overweight gray-haired man in a brown jumpsuit and work boots. “That one.”
A hot wind blows past my ankles, as if somebody had just turned a hair dryer on and aimed it at my feet. I look around to see where the heat is coming from, and a dark shadow shoots by me. At first it’s long and skinny like a snake, then it straightens up to look and walk like a man. I realize just a moment too late that it’s headed straight for Janusz.
I don’t think Janusz sees the shadow, but he definitely senses it, because he hesitates. This means he’s not where he’s supposed to be when the scaffold, overloaded by the bricks they’ve balanced on top of it, collapses.
Zeus knocks me out of the way, and the masonry and the scaffolding all come down in one inglorious heap.
I think at first that nobody got hurt, but then a young man’s soul emerges from the pile of bricks. He’s incredibly handsome and built like a truck, with shoulders at least twice as wide as mine. His skin is dark like melted chocolate, and his hair is in a mass of twists. He’s wearing a football letterman’s jacket and has a distinctly befuddled expression on his face.
The dark figure shrinks down into its snake-like form ag
ain. The blast of heat comes back, and I pull my feet out of the way. The shadow zooms by me, grabbing my skirt in its wake. I think I hear the fabric rip, and I swear to God, if some shadow worm just tore my only dress, I’m going to find the biggest fish in the undead world and feed him to it.
Luckily, after a quick assessment, my dress is still in one piece. But the poor footballer isn’t.
He blinks at me, his eyebrows raised. “Uh…hi,” he says.
I look over my shoulder, then back at him. He’s looking at me. I point to myself. “Me?”
“Yeah, you.” He grins, displaying perfectly white, slightly gapped teeth. “You okay? These guys better be careful. A person could get hurt around here.”
I don’t have the heart to tell him. I just point. A red stain is spreading out from under the pile of bricks, and a crowd has gathered to watch.
The player looks down, his jaw dropping. “Is that…is that me?”
Zeus sighs. “Everybody asks that question.”
I know I asked the same thing earlier, so I’m not in any position to bust this guy’s chops. I ignore the dog and take a step toward him. “Actually…yes. It is you.”
The player looks down, horror and fascination crossing over his face. “Am I dead?”
“I’m afraid so…but I don’t think you’re supposed to be.”
“No shit, I’m not supposed to be!” He gestures at the pile of rock that’s covering his body, which has probably been squashed flatter than a pancake. “I can’t be dead! I’ve got things…I need to…”
“You are dead,” I tell him. He’s really upset about this, and I can’t say I blame him. I know what it’s like. “I’m really sorry. There’s nothing I can do about that.”
He put his hands on his hips and looks down. “Well, hell.”
“You’ve got to come with me,” I say softly. It occurs to me that I have no idea what to do if he refuses. Do I even attempt to throw him over my shoulder? I’d probably get crushed into a pancake, too.
The football player faces me and walks away from the fatal brick pile. “Tell me it’s not Friday the Thirteenth.”
Grim (Death's Apprentice Book 1) Page 4
