Scythe

by M K Mancos

  Oh, God. When exactly was her next big paper due anyhow?

  Another mark against her heavenly employer—a recent bout of disorganization. She’d never been this confused on where she was supposed to be and what she needed to be doing in her entire life.

  She had to get a handle on things or she was going to go down in flames.

  The door opened and a guy with weirded-out hair and a long black trench coat walked in. Keely barely looked at him before turning her attention to the menu board that hung behind the counter. She’d been craving eggplant rollatini all day, but now the thought of an antipasto salad sounded more appetizing.

  The bench seat next to her jiggled and she looked over to see the young man looking at her with a leer. His eyes had yet to make it above her neckline.

  She reached up and pulled the sides of her jacket closed.

  “I’m Midnight.”

  “I’m a quarter-past-five. Nice to meet you.” The sarcasm rolled off her tongue with little thought behind it. Hopefully, the guy would get the message she didn’t invite his attempt to chat her up.

  “Eighty-seven,” Alfredo called from behind the counter.

  Keely jumped up. “That’s my number.”

  She hurried and ordered. Something about the kid gave her the creeps. He couldn’t have been more than eighteen or nineteen, but there was a darkness to him that seemed to suck the life out of the room. Maybe it was the goofy Victorian way he dressed, or the ton of hair products on his dyed-black coif, but even if he were near her age, he still wouldn’t have been someone she’d have stopped to talk to.

  She studied him from the corner of her eye. No, the clothes weren’t his problem.

  The only man she’d met lately worth a surge of hormones wore a badge and thought she had killed a defenseless homeless man in a dark alley.

  She pushed out the door and right into the path of Detective Suspicion himself. “Oh, Christ. You really are following me, aren’t you?”

  “Actually, I’m on the trail of the elusive Reverend Batrille. But what’s in a name?”

  All the blood drained from Keely’s face. The lightheadedness and spots that occurred right before unconsciousness swam into her field of vision.

  A strong hand gripped her upper arm. Thankful that her coat sleeves made it impossible to feel his hands on her skin, Keely shrugged off the detective’s grasp, but he hung onto her. She had no choice but to turn away from him. She didn’t have the strength or fortitude to look him in his warm chocolate eyes.

  She’d spent the better part of last night dreaming about those bedroom eyes and how they’d look if he were interested in a woman sexually, and not trying to pin a death on her that she hadn’t caused. The fact he exuded sex through every pore didn’t help matters a bit.

  And it had been a long time for her. Way too long.

  “Let me go.” The words came out low and husky, the voice not a bit like her own.

  Warm breath fanned her ear, and she swore she heard him take in a deep breath. “We really need to talk, Keely.”

  Without volition, she moved closer to his heat. “I can’t.”

  “If you’re in trouble, let me help.” His lips grazed her forehead. Or had she imagined that?

  What was he doing to her?

  “You can’t help me.” What was she saying? She shook her head. “I’m not in trouble. It’s nothing like that.”

  “Then explain it to me.” He placed his fingers under her chin and moved her face so she had to look at him. She tried to keep her lids closed, but it didn’t work. The compulsion to look in those gorgeous eyes of his made her lift her lashes slowly.

  A sound came from deep in his chest. Did he just growl at her?

  “I saw you in the deli talking to Midnight. Is he a friend of yours?”

  “Who?” The question came out weak. Her mind spun. When had all her senses deserted her, and more importantly why? It wasn’t like she hadn’t been hit on by a hot guy before, but this one…

  He turned her face and pointed inside the deli to the tall, strange kid who had approached her. Oh, that Midnight. “I don’t know him. He came in and started talking to me. That’s all.”

  If the detective looked angry before, his face soon became an absolute thunderhead. “Don’t talk to him again. He’s bad news and you’re going to be in enough trouble as it is.”

  “Trouble for what?” It was all she could manage to stammer out.

  “Impersonating a member of the clergy.” He steered her to his car. “Get in and I’ll take you home.”

  “I’m not going anywhere with you.” She dug her heels into the pavement and refused to let him get farther without a struggle.

  “Keely, please. Something’s going on with you and I want to know what it is.”

  That only made her dig in even deeper. If she could stand up to Samson and his ethereal authority, she could damn sure handle a mortal cop. “Has anyone lodged a compliant against me? Given you my name? Accused me of a crime?”

  “No, but I saw you. I saw you in that damn alley. I saw that freaking blade you carry and I want to know why. More importantly, I want to know why you thought it appropriate to use it in some blasphemous ritual in front of one of the city’s most prominent families.”

  The wind whooshed out of her sails and the breath left her lungs. She really had no idea if she’d ever be able to take a good breath again. Where was Samson? Wasn’t he supposed to make sure she stayed out of trouble? How could she work for the Office of Death and Dismemberment if she spent the rest of her life in jail?

  She screwed up what little bit of courage and stubbornness she had left. “You have no proof it was me.”

  “I have all the proof I need in your description.”

  Keely cocked her head to the side. “Oh yeah, and what makes my description stand out so much?”

  Color rose in his cheeks. His gaze bore into hers. Those warm, sexy eyes of his heated even more as he stared at her. The aggressive stance relaxed a bit. “Your eyes. He mentioned your eyes.”

  They stayed that way, looking at each other for Keely didn’t know how long, but knew it could probably be measured in epochs. When she finally found her voice, she said, “I need to go. I have some reading to do for the lecture tomorrow.”

  “Lecture?”

  “Grad school. I have a class in the morning.”

  Another moment passed when neither of them moved. They kept their steady gazes fixed on one another.

  “I’ll take you home.” He’d backed off some. His body not so tight with anger. His emotions not so close to the surface that they threatened to suffocate her.

  “Thanks, but I can walk home. It’s not far.”

  “Please, let me take you. This isn’t a great neighborhood.”

  She shrugged. “Maybe not, but it’s my neighborhood. Most people around here know me.”

  He let out a sigh. “Then at least let me walk with you.”

  The man was exasperation personified. How could he go from being bossy and accusing one minute to downright chivalrous the next? He was all over the emotional map.

  Unstable. That’s what he was. The guy was unstable and he carried a gun. She probably had more to fear from him than anyone else in this part of town. Not to mention she wondered if he’d staked out her place the night before.

  “I’ll be fine.” She crinkled the paper bag that held her lunch. She’d almost forgotten she still had it, he’d muddled her brain so badly.

  “Either let me walk you home or we go for a ride to the station. Your choice.”

  Samson was going to pay dearly for this one.

  “Well, come on. I don’t want to be at this all night.”

  The first thing Josiah noticed when Keely let him into her apartment was the clean but threadbare surroundings. The second thing was the ancient scroll that sat on her kitchen table so out of place with the rest of the décor. Was it something she’d brought home to work on for her graduate studies?

  A stack
of bills sat next to the scroll. None of them appeared as yet opened. Josiah craned his neck to see the last name through the little window. Montgomery. Keely R. Montgomery. All of a sudden he had a desperate need to know what the R stood for.

  “Can I get you something to drink?” She swung open the refrigerator door and gave a little gasp before closing it again.

  Josiah came up and stood behind her, expecting to see something from Sigourney Weaver’s icebox in Ghostbusters jumping out at them. Instead, when she opened the door, he was treated to a fridge stuffed with various drinks, meats, cheeses and vegetables. The lady certainly ate well. “What’s wrong?”

  Keely shook her head and reached inside. “My mother likes to come and stock me up every once in a while, but she usually calls ahead first.” She nodded toward the take-out bag she’d set on the table next to the scroll. “I wouldn’t have wasted money at the deli if I had known she’d stopped by.”

  “Your mother does this for you?” He raised a brow at the food bursting from every shelf and crisper drawer. “Maybe she could stop by my place and have a go at my fridge. I hate grocery shopping.”

  The smile she gave him was the first genuine one since he’d met her. It did odd things inside his chest. Made his heart knock triple-time against his ribs.

  “I don’t ask her to do this. She just can’t seem to help herself.” There was a softening of her eyes and warmth to her smile when she spoke about her mother.

  He didn’t want to get sidetracked by her gorgeous eyes and her smile that could lure a man like a siren’s song. He had to stay on track. But who said he couldn’t let his fact-finding flow into the conversation. “Where does she live? Around here?”

  Keely opened her mouth then closed it and shook her head. She handed him a can of cola and lifted a hand to usher him into the small living room. “You want to know about my family so you can go harass them next. No, I don’t think so.”

  He wanted to find out her background for both professional and personal reasons. Nearly choking on his tongue at the thought, he realized he wanted to know more for the personal ones.

  He glanced at a textbook on the beat-up wooden coffee table. Through Maslov’s Eyes suggested something in the human services field. “You mentioned grad school. What are you studying?”

  “I’m working on my master’s in social work at present. One day, if I’m lucky, I’ll be a doctoral candidate.” She sat on the couch with a sigh. “Sometimes it seems so far away.”

  Social work? That made the incident in the alley and impersonating a member of the clergy even more disturbing.

  He sat beside her, turning his upper body to face her. He didn’t want to miss even one small expression on her face. “You’re supposed to be helping people, right?”

  “I do. I help more people than you can possibly imagine. In more ways than I can tell you.”

  Taking in the apartment and her cryptic answer had a well of apprehension creeping open in his gut. Given the fact she tended bar in a not-so-great part of town, rife with drugs and prostitution, she obviously took her safety lightly. He wanted to shake her. Grad school was an expensive proposition and she probably didn’t make that much money tending bar at Nico’s.

  The thought that she might be selling her body to support herself nearly had him doubled over in pain. But no. She was the type to chew up a man and spit him out if he disrespected her in such a manner. Or had he pegged her wrong? Curiosity got the better of him.

  “What?” She leaned forward a little. Expectation widened her eyes. “I can tell you want to say something, so come on, out with it.”

  There was no way in hell he was going to tell her of his suspicions. Women didn’t generally take kindly to the accusation of selling their bodies if they weren’t. Besides there was something about Keely that told him she was probably damn picky about the men she slept with. But if her family paid her expenses like they did her food, why did she live here? Surely, they would want her somewhere close to them. Somewhere she was well protected and safe.

  He nixed the possibility that she turned tricks and said, “You still haven’t told me why you were at the Stanford-Evans home the other night dressed as a priest.”

  “Providing a service.”

  “What kind of service?”

  “Look, I do a lot of community outreach programs for the sick and dying. I sat with a dying woman and held her hand for comfort. That’s it. Nothing more. Nothing less.”

  “The family claims you gave last rites.”

  She buried her face in her hands. “Is there a law on the books that makes that a crime?”

  “Legally, no. Morally, you have to be your own judge.” The urge to rub her back in comfort had him linking his hands together between his spread knees. There was something so vulnerable about seeing Keely in this way.

  She turned her head to look at him. “I think God may look the other way on this one.”

  The woman was as irreverent as she was beautiful. “You sound pretty confident.”

  “In this instance, I am.”

  “You know, Keely, my instincts tell me you’re a good person, but I haven’t seen much in the way of evidence to support that feeling.”

  “Then I don’t know what to tell you.” She picked up the book off the table. “If you’ll excuse me, I really do have a lot of reading to do, and you probably have someone you need to arrest.”

  Dismissed, Josiah stood and dug into his pocket for one of his business cards. “Please, stay out of trouble. But if you can’t, call me. I really do want to help you.”

  “I know.”

  10

  “What do you mean you haven’t been here?” Keely pulled the phone away from her ear and looked at the receiver as if it were at fault for her mother’s answer.

  “I would have called if I planned to drive all the way to your place. Maybe that nice Mr. Nico brought them over.”

  “I doubt that. I can’t even get him to fix my thermostat.” She picked up a bill and tried to peek at the past due amount through the little cellophane window. Things were not improving and, working as a Scythe, she didn’t earn tips.

  Samson walked into the kitchen and pulled out the chair across from her. She jerked her crossed legs off it to keep them from hitting the floor. She scowled at his rudeness.

  “Mom, I have to go. I’ve got some things to do before class tomorrow.”

  “Before you go, can we expect you for Sunday dinner? We haven’t seen you since before your birthday.”

  “You going to make chicken and dumplings?”

  “If you want me to.”

  “Of course, I do.” Her mother’s chicken and dumplings should have been on the menu in heaven. They were just that good.

  After they said the requisite “I love yous” they hung up and Keely turned to Samson. “So, what’s with the produce section in my fridge?”

  Samson raised a dark brow and swiveled in his seat to glance over his shoulder. “Did you not say to Nico this afternoon that your cupboards were barren?”

  “From my lips to God’s ears. Is that it?”

  “Ask and ye shall receive.”

  “Whatever. I like to pay my own way.” She let her gaze fall to the unopened bills and winced internally.

  “You are. The food is part of your compensation.”

  “You should have told me before I came here with a cop at my back and nearly scared myself half to death when I went to grab him a soda.”

  “The same one who stopped us on the sidewalk?”

  Keely nodded and stood. She didn’t want to talk about Josiah. A definite change of topic was in order. “What’s my other compensation? Days off? Vacation time? Time-and-half for weekends and holidays? We never did discuss all this and I’m starting to feel used here.”

  “He provides.”

  “Yeah, you implied that before.” She lifted a handful of final notice envelopes off her table. “I need money, not produce. I can buy my own food. The way I see it, Wage and Labo
r would have your asses for using me the way you do.”

  He took the bills from her hands. “Consider them paid in full.”

  “Weekends? Vacations?”

  He shook his head. “We work every day of the year.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m a special case. I want some time to date. I’m a single woman, you know. And I’m alive. I have needs.”

  Samson raised a brow. “Back to the detective, are we?”

  Heat shot to Keely’s face. “Why do you keep bringing him up? He wants to arrest me, not date me.”

  Samson’s expression never changed. “Did you not just state you have needs? It seems to me the good detective is as likely a candidate to help you with that as any other number of men of your acquaintance.”

  She held her hand up to stop him. “Don’t try to play cosmic matchmaker with me.”

  The denial lacked punch. Only because she really had a dire need to know the taste of Josiah Adler’s lips. He had a way of looking at her with those sexy eyes that melted her like snow in July.

  “Do not sell him short, Keely.”

  She shook her head. There was no way in hell she was having this conversation with him. Not with the confused emotions Josiah stirred in her just by being alive. “I suppose we should get going. The list is rather short tonight and I’d like to get home and have a little me time.”

  A crowd had already gathered by the time they arrived at the scene. Bystanders and passersby only, no cops or rescue vehicles had as yet arrived, but the young Hispanic man had passed to his next plane of existence.

  Samson pushed his way through the crowd, leaving a wake large enough between people for Keely to squeeze through.

  A gang-style shooting in a busy intersection of Harper and First drew attention from curious locals. Humberto Rubens lay on the ground with a bloodstain flowering across the front of his long white T-shirt. That was nothing, however, to the size of the blood pool underneath the victim.

  Keely studied the crowd of gawkers. “I can’t Scythe with all these people around.”

  He turned, flashing blue eyes to her. Steely resolve burned deep in their depths. “Trust me on this.”