by H. D. Gordon
Her throat bobs as she swallows and her lovely face sobers. “So am I.”
I draw a breath, drink in her face for a final time as though it is water, and I’m terribly parched.
“Good luck, then,” I say, and hold out my hand. “I’m Cecilia.”
As she places her hand in mine, I cannot remember the last time I experienced the simple greeting. “Anais,” she says. “And good luck to you, too, Cecilia.”
Anais continues past me. I watch her until she disappears into the fray. Such a strange world we live in, I think, and then I am back on the prowl.
I pull the hourglass hanging on a long gold chain out of my shirt and examine it. Before I left Rose, I calibrated it to the amount of time she had left in her hourglass. Minutes dwindle as grains of sand continue to fall. I pick up my pace and continue to scan the crowd.
I am just starting to believe I will never find what I am looking for when I spot a tent tucked along the edges of the Market, nestled amongst the shadows. There is nothing spectacular about it; on the contrary, it is rather plain in comparison to the sights that surround it. But once my eyes touch it, I cannot draw them away.
It is as if the plain white tent is calling to me, summoning me closer.
I head toward it in not quite a daze, but not quite not one, either. The sounds of the Market die around me as a soft, sweet humming captures my ears. The scent of bodies, roasting meats, and sugars dissipate until I can smell only lavender tea and something else I can’t put my finger on but enjoy nonetheless. The tent calls me forward, and forward I go.
Like Little Red Riding Hood, on her way to grandmother’s house, unsure what she will find inside.
7
3:25 p.m.
I push aside the tent flaps and step in.
My shoulders relax, and I draw a breath for the sake of it, not because my immortal body needs air, but because it seems to ease me to do so.
The interior is as plain as was the outside, but I am instantly comfortable here, and a small voice in the back of my head tells me that this fact alone should raise some alarm.
But it is hard to hear it over the sound of the soft humming.
The humming which now stops.
Sitting on a stool in the rear of the tent is an older woman, hair as silver as the moonlight and eyes as wise as time. Feathers hang from her ears, and her smooth skin is adorned with dull blue tattoos that climb up her arms and over her shoulders. Her head turns as I enter, chin jerking as might a bird’s. Her face is kind but strong. Her eyes scan the place where I stand, but I can tell she cannot see me.
She lifts a pair of peculiar, rimless glasses that hang on a silver chain around her neck, and places them upon her nose. Her head tilts again in that peculiar, birdlike way.
“Ah,” she says as she apparently sees me. “A reaper. How curious.”
“How are you?” I say, and it comes out sounding stupid, but I am way out of my element here, and trying not to show it.
The Abbah laughs heartily, and the low rumble of it is somehow comforting. “I’m well, child, thank you for asking… And, how, exactly, are you?”
Gods help me, but I want to cry. My throat tightens and I draw a slow breath. How long has it been since someone asked me that? I swallow.
“Not great,” I manage to say without cracking.
The Abbah gestures toward a stool near her own. I draw closer and take the offering, feeling relief as the weight relaxes off my feet, weight that is wholly imagined.
“An eternity collecting souls… How could you be great?” She croaks another laugh, but sobers fast, sharp eyes curious. “Tell Abbah what’s ailing you, dear.”
That small voice in the back of my mind whispers as the urge to spill my guts seizes me. The Abbah does not give without taking.
But, then again, perhaps everything in all the realms was a give and take, an equal and opposite reaction, a constant push and pull.
“I need to save a life,” I say.
The Abbah nods and crosses her legs, shifting her long skirts as toes adorned with silver rings flash before again disappearing. She tucks some of her long hair behind her ear, feathers swaying. “That is a conundrum, then, seeing as how you are only in the business of taking life.”
She sounds truly sympathetic, appropriately concerned. I remind myself that the creature before me has lived lifetimes longer than I; The stories about the Abbah dated back through the ages, a great many of them not all that pretty.
“Do you have what I need?” I ask.
The Abbah straightens, and I see a hint of respect in her gaze. Her head tilts and shifts, as though she is listening to whispers only she can hear.
“Of course I do,” she says.
I wait, fighting against the urge to relax entirely, to seep into a puddle at her feet and let her comb her fingers through my hair.
A crafty, ancient witch, the Abbah.
She smiles, flashing teeth a touch too large for her mouth, the expression just a bit too inviting for my liking. She reaches into the folds of her skirts and produces a vial.
Inside, an earthy green liquid shimmers and glows.
“A sip of this can stave off death,” she says, eyes glittering as she studies the vial, then looks back at me. “But there is no remedy for Fate.”
“What does that mean? Even if I save the person from death, they’ll only die in some other way?”
“It means only what I said. There’s no shaking Fate, child. Even for a reaper.” She laughs. I no longer find the sound soothing. “Perhaps especially for a reaper.”
The image of Rose and Kai in the bookshop flashes through my mind, and I swallow past the apprehension gathering in my throat.
I nod toward the vial. “What do you want in exchange for that?”
Her head tilts, feathers and silver hair shifting as she examines me with sharp eyes. “An eye for an eye, as they say… Or in this case, a life for a life. Everything is about balance. You, of all people, surely know that.”
I stiffen. The price for saving Rose’s life is taking that of another?
No, I remind myself. That is simply the downpayment. Paying the Abbah will be nothing compared to reconciling with Father.
A little late to the party, I know, but for the first time since seeing the hourglass appear above my niece’s head, I am starting to question whether I should be here.
“Who?” I ask. I have to know.
“A bad man. The world will be better off without him, I can assure you of that.”
“Says the solicitor to the hitman.”
“Says the witch to the reaper.”
I swallow. “Who?”
The Abbah produces a small white card from her skirts. Upon it is written a name.
Names lead me to their owners, reveal to me their souls. Names fill the lists, populate the quotas I’ve been meeting for the past seven years until they became nothing more to me than numbers.
I look at the Abbah. Perhaps that is exactly the point.
I’d accepted my duty as a reaper years ago, in general did not have a problem fulfilling my orders… But this was different. This was not in the name of the Balance of the Universe, in the name of the Father. This was in the name of mortal love, of selfishness on my part.
But here was not the place to ponder whether one was more righteous than the other.
“What about beating Fate?” I ask. “If I use that to save her, will something else just come along and take her?”
She tilts her head, chin jerking, listening to the whispers.
“You saved her once successfully before, did you not?” the Abbah asks, and I wonder if my suspicion about the whispers is not so far off base.
“You bought her an extra seven years.”
And myself an eternity of servitude, I think.
As I look at the Abbah, I get the feeling she is thinking the same thing.
“But it is not just one life you would be saving this time, is it?” she asks.
I
don’t want to know how the Abbah knows things, how she knows about the unborn child in my niece’s belly.
But she makes a good point, drawing me closer to the sale.
“Two for one,” she says, and cackles. “Can’t beat that deal.”
“Why is he a bad man?” I ask, knowing I do so pointlessly, that my mind is made up. “This person you want me to reap. And why can’t you just do it yourself?”
“He does bad things,” the Abbah snaps, impatience showing through the grandmotherly facade for the first time. “And I can’t do it myself because he is locked away so tight that no one can reach him, in a prison so secure only the guards and Death can enter.”
She holds out the card, slipping the vial of glowing green potion back into her skirts and out of sight.
My fingers close around the card as I take it and look down at the name. As I look, a tug pulls me. It is from somewhere far away, but it is insistent.
The name calls. They always do.
“Better hop to it, dear,” she says. “Time is wasting.”
8
4:15 p.m.
Am I really going to do this?
As I stare up at the imposing stone structure, the very apparent answer is yes.
Dangeon.
The most notorious prison on this side of the plane. I have never been here, have only heard stories about it whispered among other supernaturals. As a reaper, there is little to do in one’s free time other than listen, to observe but never partake.
I stand at the mouth of a bridge suspended hundreds of feet in the air, high enough that an ever-shifting fog obscures the path around my feet. From very far below, I can hear the crashing of angry waves, can smell the salt on the air. Gulls circle the platform, the stones decorated with their droppings.
I spot sentries in every crevice, creatures more gargoyle-like in appearance than anything close to human. They patrol the cliffs in droves, with talons and fangs and horns and red, gleaming eyes.
Demons to keep in demons.
Glancing around, I half expect Vladimir to drop from the sky and warn me against my actions. But he is not here. I have not seen the bird since his last warning outside the Market. I feel a pang of regret but push past it.
I need that life-saving potion. I have to make a trade. Rose is depending on me.
And this guy was a bad man, like the rest of the people here… Right?
Prisons are not reserved for just bad men. Sometimes the bad men are the ones holding the keys.
I shove these thoughts away. I am a reaper; what did it matter if he were good or bad? It had never matter before.
It did not matter now.
I brandish my scythe and adjust my grip around it. Then I start the climb. I do not even stir the fog as I move through it. I do not feel the droplets of moisture against my skin. The prowling guards take no notice of my presence.
Brushing my fingers over the card in my pocket, the name written there pulls me forward. I am like a missile locked on target.
I have witnessed some disturbing things over the last several years, but nothing prepares me for what I encounter inside the prison.
When Death comes to this place, it is a kindness. I’m not sure if this makes me feel better about my task or not.
Nonetheless, I move onward.
The entrance is a yawning maw, a gaping wound in the side of a mountain. The hideous guards pour out of it like ants from a mound. They skitter past me as does most everyone else, unaware that they are doing so.
Then the darkness swallows me, and there are only the sounds of misery and the glowing eyes of the beastly guards to mark the path forward. The temperature drops fifteen degrees—though I only know this because of the way the hot breath of the beasts hangs in the air—the atmosphere damp and cavelike.
It is terribly silent here, as though this space swallows sound, but I can feel the stone growing thicker around me, the presence of the place somehow both utterly dead and frightening alive.
No one stops me as I enter, but I can already see how this place would seem impenetrable to anyone other than a reaper.
As I move, the ground slopes steeply downward, and I feel like a parcel sliding down a throat. Around me, things I cannot see slither and skitter.
The pull of the name in my pocket tugs me deeper, and deeper still.
The moans and groans of the prisoners I pass are nothing compared to the outright screaming of others clearly in the midsts of unimaginable torture. Their cries echo from every corner, seem to seep out of the very walls. The place pulses with pain; there is no other way to put it.
If the monstrous structure I have entered was a body, I would say I found the owner of the name somewhere near the bowels, having visited all the horrors along the journey there.
Torches hanging at intervals along the wall provide a flickering orange light that makes the shadows move as if dancing to an eternal tune. I pause before a hole in the wall, just big enough to put an eye to, if one dared.
As it is, I do not need to see with my eyes to know my quarry is on the other side of this wall. And I do not need a key to enter.
I simply step right through.
There are no torches inside the windowless cell. No light at all to speak of. Darkness as thick as this could drive a sane man mad.
There is a click, and a small flame appears in the corner. It hovers before touching to the end of a hand-rolled cigarette. The end of the joint flares as the smoker draws from it, and in the dim glow, I catch sight of the face attached to the name that drew me here.
“I can’t see you, but I know you’re there,” says the male. “I’ve been waiting for you. Knew you’d come eventually… Who sent you? Was it Annabelle? It was Annabelle, wasn’t it?Never mind, don’t tell me… Just get on with it, then.”
He draws from the smoke, the scent of cloves mingling with the putrid aroma of the prison. The glow of the cigarette reflects in the curved blade of my scythe, and provides just enough light for me to make out his features.
I pause. He is grimy and underfed, but he is handsome, and looks mostly human. I’m not sure what I’d been expecting, but this was certainly not it.
Questions try to bubble up in my mind—Who is this person? What did he do to get in here?—But I put a stop to them before they can fully manifest.
The very first rule of becoming a reaper? Don’t ask questions about the souls you reap. It can only lead to misery.
Then again, as far as rules go, I was on the precipice of breaking quite a few of them.
Unless I stopped now. I could still stop right now…
Or maybe I’m just kidding myself. Maybe Samael had been right back at the bookstore. Maybe I’m already cascading down a slope too slippery to climb back up.
The handsome male draws from his square, blows out a slow puff of smoke, smacks his lips as if he is about to say something.
What, I will never know.
I swing my scythe, same as I have countless times before, and reap his soul before my right mind can demand better of me.
The Abbah claps her hands together, a jubilant smile lighting up her old face.
Her features seem far less motherly and kind than just the last time I was here.
“Less than hour!” she says. “You accomplished what I’ve been trying to do for centuries in less than an hour!” She cackles in delight, and my stomach flips at the sound of it.
“Now, that’s efficient!” she continues. “Such a shame you have to go. We would make a good team, me and you.”
She reaches into her skirts and holds up the vial of glowing green liquid. She extends it out to me.
A big part of me does not want to take it. I take it, anyway. I study it for only a moment before slipping it into my pocket.
When I just stand there, the Abbah looks at me, cocking her head this way and that in that birdlike manner of hers.
“What are you waiting for, child?” she asks. Her head tilts, listening. Understanding lights her fac
e and she smiles slowly. “You have questions but you don’t really want the answers to them.”
She is right, but I don’t have to give her the satisfaction of acknowledging it. Instead, I take my bounty and turn on my heels.
In two short strides, I am out of her tent, the sounds, scents, and sights of the Market filling in the world once again.
But before I slip away entirely, I hear the Abbah’s triumphant laugh.
9
5:45 p.m.
“The Father has not yet set a bounty for your soul, but he will do so soon enough,” says the reaper. “So if you’re determined to doom yourself, you might as well indulge a little first, don’t you think?”
I don’t jump at the sudden appearance, the deep rumble of the voice, though it does raise the hair on the back of my neck and chill bumps over the tops of my arms.
I look over at Samael. He looks the same as ever; strong, imposing, handsome and unyielding. His dark hair eats the sunlight, the muscled wings on his back doing the same. His scythe rests beside his massive thigh, and his posture suggests he hasn’t a care in the world.
But clearly he is here. Again. I can’t help but wonder why, but suspect if I inquire, I will only get veiled truths and half answers. Motives can only ever be truly known by those to whom they belong, anyway.
Also, I am resigned to accept whatever comes following my next actions, and he seems to be as well.
So, I say, “What do you have in mind?”
He shifts a bit, his wings adjusting behind his back and his barbed tail flicking this way and that as he considers. His hood is off, his all black clothes somehow more mournful under the sunlight than intimidating, as they had been every other time I’d encountered him. It is just a glimpse, a flash of a fleeting moment, but I suddenly see the terrible sadness beneath the imposing veneer. For a heartbeat, I am not afraid of him; on the contrary, I feel a bone-deep empathy for him.
How long has he walked alone between the planes? And what did that kind of time do to a soul?
