Reapers

by Bryan Davis

  At ground level, the limo passed by and parked close to the tower. A door in the abandoned building under the far searchlight flew open. Armed guards ushered a line of prisoners through—men, women, and children—most with bowed heads and shoulders, though a few walked upright.

  I spied Theresa among the ten or so guards. As one of Sing’s “people,” she could be our way out of this mess. And Shanghai and Cairo lurked somewhere. Maybe they could provide some help as well.

  “Phoenix, kindly close the gate before you come.”

  I hovered my finger over the switch. Leaving the gate open might provide the best chance of escape. “No can do,” I said into the radio as I hustled down the stairs. “I’m already on my way.”

  I walked into the prison yard. The limo sat just a few steps from the tower. A rear door opened. Erin emerged with her shoulder bag in place and a glowing sphere in her palms, uncovered in spite of the drizzle.

  She smiled. “Have you come to escort me, Phoenix?”

  “In a manner of speaking.” I joined her and walked toward Alex and the pedestals, glancing around for Cairo, but he was nowhere in sight. Erin hummed a soft tune, apparently without a worry in the world. Yet, she had come to trade an empty sphere for one she would take to the abyss, where she would cast innocent souls like Kwame and the foreman and maybe Misty into a whirlpool of eternal torment. Such contempt for life made her as evil as Alex.

  When we arrived at the depot, Erin walked past Alex, set the sphere in the main pedestal’s depression, and withdrew a tablet from her bag. Standing with an arm shielding the tablet’s screen, she nodded. “I am ready.”

  I glanced at the limo’s open door. Only the chauffeur remained inside. Melchizedek hadn’t come. Apparently he was satisfied with the camp’s operation and didn’t need to oversee another reaping.

  Peter set the silver box at Erin’s feet. “You know where to take this one,” he said.

  “I do.” Erin flashed a sinister smile. “I hear another soul might be added to it before the morning is over.”

  “Perhaps.” Peter fanned his cloak. “It’s time to reap.”

  I spread out my arms. “I’m here, Alex. What do you want with me?”

  Alex clipped the radio to her belt. “I want to perform a modified version of our earlier experiments. You might call it round three in our series of tests, and I need you as a test subject. You are more important to me than is a rogue Reaper like Singapore.”

  “Why? What’s so important about me?”

  “One moment please.” She gave Peter a shove. “Make yourself useful.”

  After rolling his eyes briefly, Peter limped toward the prisoners.

  I gave them both a stealthy scan. Something between these two had changed. Why the sudden lack of respect?

  “What’s so important about you?” Alex turned her gaze back on me, her irises again displaying a metallic luster. “Let’s just say that your special talents are required for an assignment no one else has been able to accomplish. Don’t bother asking about the details.”

  I nodded at Sing. “Let her go. Then I’m yours.”

  Alex reached into her jacket, withdrew a sonic gun, and pressed it against the back of Sing’s head. “But Phoenix, she’s part of the experiment, and you will decide whether or not she is set free.”

  As she paused for dramatic effect, I glared at her. She wanted me to ask how I would decide, but I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction.

  The guards called out commands and lined the prisoners in rows, then forced them to their knees in execution position. A few of the men struggled, but a smack of a gun butt to their heads squashed any hope of rebellion. Gasps erupted here and there, and a few children cried, but most of the prisoners stayed quiet.

  Peter stood next to a male prisoner closest to the pedestals. “I’m ready.”

  As if summoned by his words, the sky darkened. Thunder rumbled. The spitting droplets increased to a steady drizzle, more stinging than usual, a reminder that our plans had fallen apart. Innocent prisoners might die in mere moments.

  I shifted my stare back to Alex. Her plans were growing clearer. She again hoped to conquer my mind with some sort of coercion that involved threatening someone with death, Sing this time. I had to prepare myself for anything. I had overcome the energy’s influence before, so I could do it again, but how could I overcome Alex and ten guards with rifles? Even with Theresa’s help, it seemed impossible.

  Alex nodded at the central pedestal. “You get the place of honor.”

  I looked at the disk. Alex probably wanted to empty my cloak to make room for souls, thinking I would eventually acquiesce to reaping the camp prisoners. Since the new sphere lay in the depression, the souls in my cloak would be safe from the abyss.

  Heaving a resigned sigh, I shuffled toward the pedestal. As I walked past Sing, she gazed at me with sad eyes. Despair flowed between us. We both knew that the next few minutes would result in torture… or worse.

  As I lifted a leg to mount the pedestal, Alex called out, “First drop your belt.”

  I unfastened my belt and let it fall to my feet, raising a squishing sound from the damp turf. Still behind Sing, Alex reached over and dragged the belt to her side. “Erin, you know what to do.”

  When I stepped up to the pedestal and straddled the glowing sphere, Erin connected my clasp to the tube. The familiar hum returned. Once the vacuum took hold, she stepped down and tapped the tablet screen. “Beginning suction.”

  I flexed my muscles. The pain of departing souls would soon come, but a new infusion of energy would bring relief and with it the ability to enter ghost mode. That might be my only hope to save everyone. “Good-bye, Tori,” I whispered into the fibers. “Good-bye… Albert.”

  Energy flowed from my body, through my clasp, and into the tube, but no pain followed, no extraction of souls, only fatigue… weakness. My arms wilted and flopped at my sides. My legs buckled. As I dropped to my knees, a moan escaped my lips, but I quickly stifled it.

  “That’s good, Erin,” Alex said. “He’s weak enough for the final test.”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Erin slid a finger across the tablet’s screen. “He is probably well under two percent right now, lower than Mexico City’s level before he died. As you guessed, Alex, this method is far more efficient than forcing a valve leak.” She pushed the tablet into her bag. “Phoenix, you are free to detach.”

  As the hum died away, I reached for the connector, my arms shaking. My fingers slipped across the wet tube, but a second try unfastened it. Breathing shallow gasps, I reinserted my cloak’s clasp. The void burned within. Spasms rocked my abdomen—pulses of pure torture. I could barely breathe.

  “While we wait for Phoenix to stabilize,” Alex said, “I think it’s time to begin revealing all we recently learned about Singapore.” She grabbed Sing’s hair and jerked her head back, stretching her bruised face and forcing her eyes wide open. Blood streamed from her nose and dripped from her chin, past her dangling medallion, and down her chest. “This seductress is a pawn of the rebels, though she has no idea how they have used her.”

  Sing coughed loudly and clutched her chest, tucking her medallion away with a pinky finger, a stealthy move no one else likely noticed. “That’s not true. I do know.” Her voice sounded rough, almost unrecognizable. “Tokyo and my father have been planning… planning for me to infiltrate the Gateway… ever since I was born. I am not a pawn.”

  I cringed. Why was Sing giving away information? For my benefit? Revealing her importance would get her killed for sure.

  “Is that so?” Alex twisted Sing’s hair. “Then tell me, why did your own father hide from you as a ghost?”

  Grimacing, Sing firmed her lips and said nothing.

  “You see,” Alex continued, now staring straight at me, “the little liar has no explanation. She is a pawn, and the realization has rendered her speechless.”

  My heart pounded so hard it seemed ready to explode. A scream begged to e
scape my throat, but I swallowed it down. I had to concentrate on Alex and Sing. Of course there was an explanation for Kwame’s claim to be Sing’s father. He was trying to throw Alex off the trail, but I couldn’t blurt that out. Giving Alex more information was the last thing I wanted to do.

  “Although Singapore seems to have lost her voice,” Alex continued, “we have much more to say.” She released Sing’s hair, stepped to one of the other pedestals, and scooped up the garment she had been carrying earlier. She shook it, making it unfold into the shape of a cloak. “A fine cloak Erin recovered in the shroud. One of our perimeter guards reported seeing Singapore give her cloak to a hooded woman. While Singapore stood calmly, that woman punched her in the face. We think her purpose was to fake an attack so she could explain the loss of her cloak, though we have not yet deduced the reason for the charade. We did, however, learn something important during that interchange.”

  I tried to catch Sing’s gaze, but she averted her eyes. She wouldn’t have done what Alex said. She was too trustworthy, too loyal to deceive me like that.

  Alex raised a finger. “Before we reveal what else we learned, let’s begin the next step in our experiment.” She extended the sonic gun. “Take my place, press the gun against Singapore’s head, and pull the trigger. I want you to kill her.”

  I took a deep breath, trying to settle my runaway heart. “If you’re…” My own voice sounded worse than Sing’s. I cleared my throat and continued, though pain throttled my words. “If you’re threatening to… to shoot me if I… if I don’t kill Sing… that won’t work. I’d rather die than… than hurt her.”

  Alex let out a condescending laugh. “I know that, Phoenix. I’m not stupid.” She called to the guards. “Execute one of the prisoners!”

  Theresa withdrew a sonic gun, walked behind the closest kneeling man, and shot him in the back of the head. As the man toppled to the ground, a woman screamed but quickly silenced herself. Murmurs rose among the other prisoners, blending with the background cries of children. Peter wrapped his cloak around the man and began the reaping process.

  I gulped. How could Theresa do that? Wasn’t she on our side?

  Alex laughed again. “Surprised, Phoenix?”

  I clenched my teeth. She knew the answer.

  “You see,” she continued, “when the woman took the cloak, unaware that anyone was listening, she referred to Singapore as ‘the Raven’ loudly enough for Theresa to hear. Theresa used that name to get away from you so she could tell us about the drugged coffee. Unfortunately, she couldn’t get back in time to warn the tower guards, but that was a small matter.”

  I seethed. Yet another guard played me for a fool. But how could I have known?

  Alex called to the guards. “One of you close the front gate.”

  While a male guard ran toward the tower, I rolled my aching fingers into a fist. “Cowards! You use innocent—”

  “Shut up, Phoenix!” Alex extended the gun toward me again. “Put this against Sing’s head right now, or I’ll order another execution in two seconds!”

  I crawled from the pedestal and allowed her to put the gun in my hand. As I curled my fingers around the handle, half my brain shouted, Shoot Alex! but the other half screamed, No! Then everyone will die!

  I knelt behind Sing and pressed the barrel against the back of her head. As my heart raced, I whispered between gasps for breath. “Don’t worry… I won’t… kill you.… Just buying time… to think.”

  “I’m not worried, Phoenix.” Sing coughed again. Blood dribbled from her mouth, joining the stream from her nose. “I trust you. I hope you’ll keep trusting me.”

  The gate dragged across the entry road. When it clanked shut, my heart sank. Another escape option had been dashed.

  Alex paced in front of Sing and me, Sing’s cloak in hand. “As I was saying, we haven’t yet deduced the reason Singapore faked the loss of her cloak. Since she is Tokyo’s daughter, we believe she is able to withdraw souls without it. She is very powerful, and the Gatekeeper thinks her power will continue to grow, which is why he ordered her execution. Yet, I decided to keep her alive for a while longer.” She stopped pacing and stared at me. “Why do you think that is, Phoenix?”

  I glanced at the prisoners. Their murmurs grew louder. Something was definitely going on. Maybe they were planning an escape in spite of the closed gate. They would die either way, so why not?

  When I refocused on Alex, I took a deep breath to quell the inner boil and spoke in a slow cadence. “I am not interested in answering the venom of a devilish witch.”

  “Witch?” Alex crouched in front of us and lowered her voice to a hissing whisper. “Only hours ago you hesitated for five seconds, and it cost you Misty’s life. Now I will provide you with a revelation.” Her eyes glinted once again—lustrous and penetrating. “You will learn that everything you have trusted in since this ordeal began has been a lie. Then I will give you the opportunity to renounce your loyalty to this liar, the one who has put you in danger time and time again in order to pursue a mad obsession. When you kill her, all will be forgiven, and I will release the rest of the prisoners unharmed. Otherwise, they will all die. You will buy Sing’s pardon with their blood.”

  My hands shook. Spears stabbed my stomach. “But why am I so important? You could kill her yourself.”

  Her whisper lowered even further. “I know you have a special talent, Phoenix. The Gatekeeper knows it as well. He also ordered your execution, but I need you alive.” She coughed to cover her next words. “To conquer him.”

  I felt my mouth drop open. Conquer him? What new deception was this?

  Alex draped the cloak over Sing’s shoulders. “Here is your mother’s cloak, Singapore.”

  Sing trembled but stayed quiet, her stare fixed on a pool—a pink-tinged slurry of blood and dirt that grew slowly in the light rainfall.

  “She lied to you, Phoenix.” Alex rose and pointed at her. “That sniveling wretch is no friend of yours. The Resistance arranged to have her live next to you so she could begin a systematic seduction by romancing you while you were in a lonely, vulnerable state. She used her feminine wiles to capture your heart so you would help deliver her mother to the Gateway. But that wasn’t enough for this vamp. She enticed you to bring her here so she could enter the Gateway herself, all because of an insane conspiracy theory that denies the reality of the Gateway’s benevolence. If not for Singapore’s wild obsessions, Colm would be alive. Misty would be alive. And now two hundred men, women, and children kneel in terror, wanting to know if your selfish, spellbound loyalty to this deceiver will cost them their lives.”

  I looked at the prisoners. They shivered in the drizzle, some weeping, all frightened—waiting for someone to make a courageous decision. As the void continued gnawing at my gut, my arms wilted. My trigger finger cramped. Would one little squeeze really set those suffering prisoners free?

  Alex stabbed a finger at Sing. “Kill her, Phoenix! Be done with this wanton wench. My guard at the prisoners’ residence building deceived you. Theresa deceived you. You are obviously too easily led by the nose. And now letting Sing live will serve only to prove your starry-eyed naïveté once again, and your unprecedented gullibility will mean the deaths of many children who just want a chance to leave this hellhole and go home in peace!”

  Sing cried out, her words punctuated by gurgling gasps. “Do what… you think is right… I asked you to… to trust me… but either way you decide… I’ll still love you.… I will always love you.”

  “More lies!” Alex shouted. “She has proven you can’t believe a word she says. Kill her now and be done with it.”

  My entire body quaked. “I… I can’t.”

  Alex waved a hand at the prisoners. Theresa walked behind a woman and shot her with the sonic gun. The telltale pop jolted my brain. She twitched on the ground for a moment, then lay motionless. Like a vulture, Peter descended on her body and covered her with his cloak.

  A little girl screamed, “Mommy!”
Two men leaped to their feet, but when a guard grabbed the girl and set a gun to her head, the men dropped to their knees again.

  My arm shook harder. I could barely keep the gun in place. A barrage of images blazed in my mind—Sing and Kwame and Alex and Shanghai—all spinning in a wild vortex. Finally, Mex’s image blended into the turmoil. With desperate pulls, he struggled to free himself from the life-sucking vacuum, the death penalty so callously executed by the will of one of the Council’s minions, a sentence delivered because of evidence planted on him, planted by a son and his mother who had conspired to bring about this end at this moment. If I killed Sing, they would have their victory. If I killed Sing, Alex would win. If I killed Sing, my heart would shrivel up and die.

  “You’ve run out of time, Phoenix.” Alex’s tone was cold and cruel. “Kill her now, or a child is next. You know I won’t hesitate.”

  Again I glanced at the prisoners. Still kneeling, still shivering, still waiting for a decision that might rise above my cowardly stalling.

  A rattling engine drew near. Alex turned toward the sound while I shifted my focus to Sing. Could it be Liam? Maybe… just maybe we had a chance.

  I leaned closer to Sing and whispered, “Get ready to run. We’re going to make a break for it. They can’t stop all of us.”

  “In your condition?” Sing pushed something into my free hand. “I’m not running.… Search your watch.… The medallion is the key… Follow me… to the Gateway.” She reached around, grabbed my gun hand, and pulled the trigger. The gun popped. Her head jerked. Her body fell limp, and she dropped face first into the muddy grass.

  I tried to shout, but the words caught in my throat. Just as I reached for Sing, a van crashed through the gate, sending it flying. A swarm of male prisoners leaped up and barreled into Peter and the guards. Men and women scooped up children and stampeded toward the exit. Water and mud splashed. Shots rang out. Prisoners shrieked and groaned.

  At the shattered opening, Liam leaped out of his van and yelled, “Get the little ones in!” He threw open a side door and ran into the streaming mob, grabbing children right and left.