by M K Mancos
Damn, but she was the most erotic woman he’d ever been with. The way she moved, the way she looked at him, the way she loved with such abandon, totally undid him.
Concentration fled as she squeezed him a bit harder, moved up and down his shaft faster. He rocked his hips up to meet her. Her tight walls contracted around him.
A scream tore from her throat.
Sweet Jesus!
Josiah gripped her hips tightly, pumping like a marathon winner in the final stretch. Keely gave his balls a final squeeze with such excellent timing, he did some screaming of his own. Strike that—he shouted. Let loose with a yell that should have by rights brought the ceiling crashing down around them. He pumped into her with blinding force, thankful for the protection of condoms. Not as a means of birth control, but to keep the top of her head from blowing completely off.
He lay his head back on her pillow, sucking in air through his open mouth. Christ, he was going to suffocate from air hunger. It didn’t help that Keely chose that moment to lie down on top of him. But somehow his arms managed to get around her, holding her in place.
She kissed his chin. “You’re really good, you know that?”
He thought he grunted something, but couldn’t be sure if it was an answer or the last air he managed to squeeze in and out of his lungs before he passed out.
He woke sometime later with Keely curled up beside him. Her leg thrown casually over his, trapping him to the bed. It was an unconsciously possessive maneuver. He smiled as he tried to extricate himself from the nocturnal wrestling move.
“Where are you going?” The only thing that moved was her mouth and then only enough for the words to pass through.
“To the bathroom. I’ll be right back.” And because she looked so sweet sleeping next to him, he leaned over and kissed her bare shoulder. Tenderness spread through his chest, making him ache.
“I think I forgot to fill the toilet paper roll earlier.”
“I’ll be fine without.” He wasn’t about to go into an explanation of his bodily functions at five in the morning.
The stupid smile left his face as he exited the bedroom in time to see a large black shadow move from her living room to the kitchen. That was no freaking mouse.
22
Naked save for his anger, Josiah went into a stalking crouch, centering his weight and holding his hands in a defensive position. What he expected to do against an apparition he had no idea, but he really didn’t want to sneak up on the thing without some kind of protection.
His gun was on the nightstand, but hell, he’d always hated watching stupid movies where some moron tried to bring down a ghost with bullets. Talk about thumbing your nose at the laws of physics.
Slowly, he crept to the wall that divided the kitchen from the living room. A small nightlight illuminated the immediate area, chasing away some of the darkness, but not all of it. Standing by the refrigerator was a six-and-a-half-foot wall of darkness shaped like a man.
It shimmered and moved like the picture from a cable station about to go on the fritz. It reached out what Josiah sensed was a hand. Instinctively, he backed up a step. The thing continued forward.
“Oh my, God!” Keely came from the bedroom at a dead run. “Josiah, get back. Don’t let it touch you!”
He hadn’t planned to let it touch him, but it kept coming at him. “What the hell is it?”
“It’s a Reaper. But it’s not one of ours.”
A Reaper?
Keely dove for her utility belt, pulling the golden sickle from the pouch. “Samson! We could use some help here.”
She scrambled off the floor, holding the sickle like some ninja farmer. She lunged for the black specter, slashing in a backhanded arc.
The thing let out a deafening scream and fell to the ground, dissolving into a human form. Blood pooled on the linoleum.
Josiah turned on the lights and came forward. “Holy shit. What just happened here?”
Though he now looked down on a young man, that had not been the same thing trying to reach out and touch him.
“We need to call this in.” After checking the perp for weapons, Josiah went into the bedroom and grabbed his cell phone. He barely had his code in when Keely took it from him.
She shook her head. “What are you going to tell your colleagues?”
“That he broke in here and tried to kill us.”
“And they’d want to know why he was injured with a bladed weapon instead of being shot.”
That brought him up short. “He’s bleeding to death in your kitchen.”
“He’s already dead. Besides, Samson will take care of it. He knows how to handle this.” She looked down at his nakedness. “Put on some pants and come out there. He wants to talk to you.”
Had he lost track of the conversation somewhere along the way? “Who?”
“Samson.”
Keely reached for a robe on the back of the door. Her cheeks were pink. “I can’t believe this.”
Honestly, he had a hard time believing any of it himself and he didn’t even know what the hell was going on yet.
Josiah did as instructed and even put on his shirt for good measure.
The man looked even taller and more imposing in Keely’s tiny kitchen. He was bent over the body, inspecting it. “This is definitely the work of Death, Inc. Though sending a recruited Reaper out to make a hit on you instead of a converted one is very sloppy work.”
“We knew they were sloppy after the murder in the park last night,” Keely pointed out, her hands on her hips in annoyance. “Just get him out of my kitchen.”
Samson gave her an odd look. “Is this the same woman who begged me to intercede on behalf of a woman who was murdered by her husband?”
“Yes, and it’s also the woman who was just targeted by a Reaper bent on killing her and her boyfriend in their sleep.” She stalked over to the cabinet and began pulling things out for coffee. “I want Death, Inc. to go down so bad I can taste it.”
Josiah had heard enough of secret languages and funky job titles. He needed a secret decoder ring to follow the conversation. “That’s enough.” He pointed a finger at Samson. “You start talking or I’m calling this in and we’re handling it like a B and E with the attempted homicide of a cop.”
“You didn’t tell him,” the big guy accused Keely.
“I invited him to make rounds with us later tonight. I thought showing him would help explain it better.” She turned on the tap and filled the coffee pot.
“I can see where that is more efficient, yes.” Samson stood and held his hand about three feet above the body. He moved his arm in an expanding circle. Slowly, the body and blood faded until the spot where the slain man lay was empty.
Josiah stared at the place. Not even trace evidence remained. It was as if no crime had been committed.
Damn, he needed to sit down.
He didn’t remember pulling out the chair and sitting at Keely’s table. He didn’t remember asking for a shot of whiskey, but he felt the burn as he kicked it back and swallowed.
“Feel better?” Keely sat next to him, her hand on top of his.
He started to shake his head. “Just cut the crap and tell me how crazy I am.”
“You aren’t crazy.” She squeezed his hand. “There is a whole other world working around us that we can’t see or hear or smell. Everything you’ve heard about God and heaven is true. It’s just a little more corporate than you’d probably like to believe.”
“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” Josiah rubbed his forehead, only to realize his hand shook. Embarrassed, he put it back down on the table.
Samson sat across from them. His ice blue eyes cut through Josiah like a glacier. “We like to think of ourselves as organized.”
Josiah frowned. “Are you telling me he’s some kind of angel of death or something?”
“In a manner of speaking. It’s a little more complicated than that.” Keely stood and walked to retrieve her utility belt where she left it on
the entranceway floor. She opened a flap and handed him an ancient looking piece of parchment paper. It was a list of names and times.
“What is this?” He was afraid he already knew.
“It’s a death list. These are the people who were scheduled to pass away last night, according to the official rolls.” She looked over her shoulder as he studied the names. “If you check, you’ll find none of the people on this list died by anything other than natural causes.”
It was too much to take in and yet he’d begged her for days to tell him the truth. But was it the truth? How could he believe a story so fantastic, even Hollywood wouldn’t dare to turn it into a movie? Did he doubt even his own eyes?
He pushed off from the chair. “I think I need some time.”
Keely gazed at him, her heart in her eyes. Even from where he stood, he could tell it was breaking.
She nodded. “All right.”
He gathered his things and left the apartment.
Samson would take care of her. Hell, the big gorilla was better equipped to handle anything likely to slip into her place from wherever it was that thing had come from.
Shit, he couldn’t think straight.
He exited the building to the cold slap of early morning. It hit him like a Nordic blast, sending icy fingers down his coat collar.
He climbed into his car and sat.
What he’d witnessed defied logic and description. In all the years he’d been a comic book and sci-fi geek, he’d never once questioned the believability of beings with superpowers or otherworldly figures walking among humans. But when body-checked by the reality that they were real, his mind shut down completely.
But the books, movies, comics, and television shows that had shaped his life were conventions of someone’s fertile imagination, not the product of fact. The hardened detective part of his brain didn’t want to take what he’d seen at face value. It longed for a more tangible explanation than the Grim Reaper actually having a function outside a Hollywood soundstage.
He looked up at the light shining from Keely’s window.
What kind of a man was he to leave her there alone? Or at least with the guy Josiah had a sneaking suspicion got her involved in such madness.
Visions of the dead jogger flashed before his eyes.
Christ.
What if that had been Keely walking back from work, left beaten and discarded like so much trash?
His guts churned in misery.
Not his Keely. His sexy, vibrant, amazing Keely.
Josiah got out of the car and headed back up to her apartment.
She’d think he’d lost his mind.
Indecisiveness wasn’t like him. He prided himself on cutting through the bullshit to get to the heart of the matter. So why did he feel like an idiot who couldn’t make up his mind?
There were no sounds coming from her apartment. No voices carried out to the hallway. No movement vibrated the boards beneath his feet.
Oh, God!
“Keely!” Josiah pounded on the door. Fear had him by the throat.
Had one of those Reapers returned and caught her off-guard? He’d never forgive himself if anything happened to her. It would be all his fault for leaving her when he should have faced the impossibility of the evidence and believed his own freaking eyes.
“Keely!”
He rammed his shoulder against the door, but the lock held.
He stood back and kicked the center of the door. It splintered at the jamb, but essentially held. One more kick and it came free.
Josiah ran into the apartment.
Emptiness greeted him.
“Keely!”
Her name echoed off the walls.
She was gone.
23
“Where are we going?” Keely walked through the back of her closet and into a void she never knew was there. So this was how Samson came and went all the time.
“To see my supervisor.”
“You have a supervisor? I thought you were the head cheese to this operation.”
They came out into what looked like an office, complete with cubicles and workers bustling back and forth to carry out their numerous duties. Keely tried hard not to stare. It was perhaps the worst joke on humanity—heaven was a corporate office building. Shouldn’t that have been hell instead? Heaven should be 365 days of vacation and an unlimited supply of chocolate and expensive designer shoes.
Samson glared at her. “If I were the so-called head cheese, as you say, I would not have the onerous duty of training you.”
Keely threw a companionable arm around his waist, leaning into him. “You know, Samson, I kind of get the impression that you missed me while I was on strike.”
He looked down at her from his great height, affront on his face. “Why would you think that?”
“Because you’re acting resentful.” Warming to her topic, she chucked him on the chin. “That’s just you trying not to show me you care.”
He mumbled something then started moving to an office at the end of the large room. The gold placard read: Akenon, Scythe Supervisor.
“I can’t believe this.” Keely reached up and touched the nameplate. “It’s so not funny.”
Samson raised a brow. “How do you think humans realized the ideal of society and order if not from their divine origins?”
“But it’s an office.” It came out as a whiny complaint. Keely shut her mouth, sucking her lips in.
“What did you expect? This is a high-volume operation.”
“But look here.” She lifted one of the death scrolls from a desk. “This isn’t efficient. If you really want to go corporate, you need to be the ghost in the machine and download lists into apps. Then people can pull it up on their phone or iPad.”
He snatched the list from her hand and dropped it back on the desk. “We came here to see Akenon, not to have you question our efficiency.”
“If you ran a more efficient operation, you could do so with fewer Scythes.”
Samson turned back to her from where he’d started to knock on the office door. He didn’t exactly acknowledge she had a good idea, but he didn’t protest either. For her, that was a small triumph.
The door slowly opened, as if on its own accord. Behind a large, clear desk sat a smaller man with sandy hair and crystalline eyes.
“Come in, Samson, Keely.” He stood and indicated the chairs across the desk from him.
Keely was momentarily taken aback that he knew her name. But she shouldn’t have been. He worked for God, after all.
She and Samson sat as Akenon retook his seat. “What can I do for you?”
Keely deferred to Samson, letting him tell the story as she’d relayed it to him.
“Keely and her young man, Josiah Adler, were attacked tonight by an agent of Death, Inc.”
Akenon picked up a piece of paper on his desk. “I just read the memo.” He shook his head and folded his hands in front of him. “Terrible thing. Just terrible.”
Keely didn’t appreciate the supervisor’s blasé attitude. “It was a Reaper. And he could shimmer just like a legitimate one.”
“Death, Inc. is an aggressive lot. They would bestow their recruits with all the powers at their disposal then send them out into the world without proper training, ethics or compassion.”
Keely stood, knowing in her heart this had been a futile mission. “And now they’re trying to eliminate your own recruits if we don’t agree to defect.”
Akenon straightened the front of his pristine robe. “There are some aspects of the situation you are not aware of. The upper management is handling the situation.”
That never sounded good. If upper management worked here the way it did on Earth, they’d talk the situation to death instead of handling it. An ironic end, to be sure.
Keely shook her head and put her hands down in her jeans pockets. “I sure hope they figure it out in time. I have a real bad feeling there are a lot of lost souls out there we aren’t going to get back.”
Was it just her imagination or did Akenon blanch a bit?
They headed back to Keely’s closet by way of the long void.
Samson remained quiet until they stood at her closet. “I’m going to poke around a bit and see if I can discover anything about what upper management’s strategy entails.”
“I’ll let you know if I see anything hinky.”
Keely climbed back through her clothes and opened the bedroom door.
Immediately, she sensed something was wrong. There was too much light and noise coming from her living room.
She poked her nose out of the bedroom, looking into the living room. Josiah stood with two uniform cops and one of her neighbors. Her front door hung drunkenly off the hinges.
“What the hell happened here?” Keely pointed at Josiah with an accusing finger. “I thought you went home?”
Josiah swung around, his face registering both relief and shock. “Where the hell were you?”
The cops and neighbor watched, waiting for her answer as well. She had news for them. There was no way in hell she was going to answer Josiah’s questions with three extra sets of ears listening in.
“I stepped out for a bit.” She pressed a hand to her nervous stomach. “Needed some air.”
Josiah narrowed his eyes at her then turned back to their audience. “Sorry about that, guys, Mrs. Daly.”
It took them a few moments to get the idea they were supposed to leave. After Josiah finally bundled them out the door, he turned on her.
“I know for a fact you weren’t in this apartment and you weren’t in the bedroom. So unless you were hiding in the closet for some stupid reason, you did not just walk in the front door.”
Keely’s face burned. “Well, I was in the closet, but I wasn’t hiding. I went with Samson to talk to his boss.”
“In the closet?”
“No, not in the closet. More like past the closet.”
Josiah let out a long-suffering sigh. “That’s twice today you scared the shit out of me.”
“Hey, I didn’t know you were coming back. You said you needed time. I assumed it would be longer than five and a half minutes,” she shot back.
