The Reaper's Embrace

by Abigail Baker

  “I cannot tell you how I wish that my love for you was greater than my instinct,” he said to Xiangu, his red eyes welling with tears. I saw from my vantage the pain in his expression, the weight of this burden pulling him through his own personal hell. “I’ll walk the rest of eternity feeling like I cut out my own heart knowing I’ve killed the only woman I have ever loved. But I can’t stop it. The power is making me do it, Ollie. I’m just the vessel for the order of the universe. No matter how powerful I am, I am not powerful enough to overcome it. And had I uncovered any loophole…any option other than this, I would’ve, Ollie.”

  When his attention slid to me, I blinked away my tears. He could not know who was who between us. I couldn’t let my emotions out me.

  “The responsibility was mine,” I said, failing to mask the break in my voice. “I had to be the one to make this work. Not you.”

  He took a step in my direction as he said, “Every second, I hoped you’d find a way.”

  There was no sense in trying to pretend to be someone I wasn’t now. “Fate has been rather unfair to us, hasn’t she?”

  Only a slight nod was his silent reply.

  “I don’t understand why we were brought together to have it end this way,” said Xiangu.

  “It’s not fair,” I added.

  Brent took a step toward me and then one toward Xiangu. The ploy was working, but how exactly we’d move on from here was unclear. Would he eventually make a choice? Would he walk away in disgust? Was this the way out—confuse the Hades out of your Grim Reaper until he decides not to participate?

  “You must choose between us,” Xiangu said.

  Brent inspected Xiangu and me for a long moment. “I’m afraid I don’t…I don’t know who to choose.”

  I had done a few things on my life that would have been called risky—jumped out of my third-floor apartment window as a teenager, narrowly avoided a car collision on my bicycle in Quebec, faced down Head Reaper Marin. I knew that in my final hour, a summary of how I’d kept one pace ahead of Death would fall before me. But standing here, watching my personal Grim Reaper conflicted about which of the Olivia Dormiers he had to ferry was not in my plan.

  My palms were slick with sweat when Brent edged toward me. In selfishness, I wanted to scream and point at Xiangu, telling him to ferry her instead. I maintained my poise, though.

  “Brent,” she said when he came too close to me. “I can’t…I can’t do this. I can’t let you take her when I’m the one who…”

  Xiangu quieted when Brent’s hands clasped my shoulders.

  My body stiffened. My muscles didn’t react when I sent panicked energy into them. My lungs shrank like deflated balloons, leaving me gasping for little beats of air.

  I didn’t expect Xiangu to throw herself into the middle of this. She owed me nothing. So it was no surprise that she remained silent as Brent moved in for his kill. He had to have known who the real Olivia was. He was a hunter. The very best.

  And he loved me. He knew me. I’d know him with my eyes closed.

  What I did not expect was for Neema and Xiangu to unite in their own lethal defense. Matched, the pair were a blending of black mist and fire, their own form of hideous death. I now understood what Xiangu’s plan was from the beginning—when he went for one of us, she and Neema would unite and finish Brent.

  Would they melt him? Would they do what Marin had done to Errol?

  I couldn’t wait to find out.

  No! Oh my God, no!

  The only other option to outliving the Deathmark was to slay the one who had rights to it—Brent.

  I slapped my hands against Brent’s hard chest to break him from his trance. “They’re gonna kill you.”

  His eyes, red with an Eidolon’s determination, slid to the Matched demon next to us. Although Neema and Xiangu had what it took to melt him for good, he showed no sign of fear. There was a flicker of relief in his expression. “Let them kill me. It’ll save you in the end.”

  “No!” I screamed. “No, I won’t let that happen.”

  “It’s the only way you live, Ollie!”

  As noble as that was, I couldn’t let it happen no matter how he welcomed it.

  Their body of fire and black smoke prepared for a strike when I shoved Brent backward with all the force I could muster. This was enough to send him staggering back through the cabin door. Using what little of my heat that I had at my disposal to to keep him from draining me of my soul, I continued to push him farther and farther away from the hut as I tried to think of a plan that would save us both.

  But as I shoved him out into the open where Nicodemus, Delia, and Papa stared on with slack jaws and confusion, the Matched pair pounced. She went for my beloved, latching onto him as a pitbull to its victim. Brent collapsed to the ground, thrashing under the might of Xiangu and Neema’s perfect union.

  “They’re going to kill him!” I yelled to my friends. Delia and Nicodemus created their own Matched threat as Papa used his size to try to come between Brent and his enemies. But Delia wasn’t a Master. Their strength as a Matched Eidolon and Scrivener simply didn’t compare to Neema’s and Xiangu’s.

  Delia and Nicodemus were hurled by Xiangu and Neema across the garden as quickly as they swooped in to assist.

  There was no logic in waiting on assistance, anyway. This battle started because of me, and it would end my way. The only thing I never anticipated was coming so close to my personal Grim Reaper, the one Stygian I had been running from for weeks, that we would become one being. But it happened before either of us had a chance to consider the consequences.

  Between a breath and heartbeat, Brent’s coldness poured over me. The familiarity of sliding into the eclipsed darkness overtook me. We combined, fire and ice, and despite my experience with other Eidolons until now, this particular moment was intoxicating. Pain and discomfort, the two staples of a Scrivener being Matched with an Eidolon, melted into warmth and security.

  I hadn’t Matched enough to understand exactly how and why it worked—or why Brent didn’t just kill me immediately. Did this intimacy mask the call of my partially healed Deathmark? Or would I soon dissolve into him, losing the rest of my soul before Neema and Xiangu destroyed him?

  United in our own icy inferno, we lunged at Xiangu and Neema, grabbed them by the arms, and shoved them to the ground. We pinned them to the grass as radiation from our perfectly balanced blending pulsed through our body and into theirs. They writhed beneath us. We held on as our energy intensified.

  The look in their red eyes said that they would not let this battle end quickly. They would fight. One powerful swing of their arm forced us off balance. We landed on our side, unstable, and not in a position to retaliate. When I expected Neema and Xiangu to attack and begin the process of melting us into brown sludge, they grabbed onto our right forearm, precisely where the top of the unfinished Deathmark throbbed in brilliant reds and golds.

  I felt Brent’s desire to fight. He was intent on doing what he was born to do—kill any Stygian who got in his way of his obligation. He was a warrior. I could not blame him for his instinct. But I would not let him break us from Xiangu and Neema’s clutches. Not now. Not as Xiangu banished another line of my Deathmark—the tops of the skull’s eyes.

  Brent hadn’t experienced this sort of agony. Whatever it felt like to me, it must have been far worse to him by the struggle he put forth. My will to see this through was stronger this time. Xiangu wanted it done. I needed it done. And he would endure it.

  As the misery increased, Brent grew increasingly violent. One of our hands pounded on the Matched demon’s shoulder as they worked vigilantly to peel away layer after layer of my Deathmark.

  In a strike as quick as lightening, we sent the pair sailing away from us. The force was so great, the pair separated. Xiangu rolled across the grass, leaving Neema alone and vulnerable. Xiangu came to a stop at the garden’s edge.

  I made the decision not to climb to my feet when Brent did. We did not need to b
e paired now that Xiangu and Neema were not. There was only one result I wanted from this melee and that was to have my Deathmark removed so that no one lost his or her life. Yet as much as I wanted to save everyone involved, there was little I could do when Brent stalked up to the critically weakened Master Scrivener, still in my likeness.

  Xiangu’s arm revealed enough to show me that she wore more of the Deathmark than before. The skull’s eyes on my arm were gone. All that lingered on me was the forehead.

  I looked from my tattoo to Xiangu. Brent lifted her from the ground. She was weak enough that he swept both arms around her, cradling her to his chest.

  I ran to Xiangu’s side. Her disguise was slowly fading now. She was turning into the Master Scrivener with long black hair and beautiful, ageless features.

  “No, Brent. Don’t!” I cried out, trying to pull Xiangu’s limp body from Brent’s grip.

  But he didn’t listen. He put his lips to Xiangu’s exactly as he put his lips to mine when I’d stood in the face of my execution in Lethe. Only once had I dared to watch the video of my trial in Lethe. I had had enough trauma that I didn’t need to relive the horrors from that fateful day when he’d half-ferried me, so part of my soul was anchored in his body. Still, I tried to save her as I pulled futilely at her body.

  “Don’t,” I whimpered. “It’s me. I’m here. You know me.”

  “She wears the mark.”

  I assume she would have made it vanish from her own body, if she’d had more time. But now, it shone dark and grim on her pale skin.

  Brent pulled her life from her body in one intake of breath.

  There were many ways for which an Eidolon to ferry a Stygian. A touch on the shoulder. A kiss. A devouring in the most violent way. Brent’s method was by far the kindest I could have imagined. Holding Xiangu like a groom holding his bride, his lips lingered for a moment.

  Brent was kissing her good-bye, a tender, loving farewell.

  Then Xiangu’s body vanished from my grip and Brent’s. A small pile of her ashes collected at our feet.

  My heart paused in shock. What just happened? Why did Xiangu let this happen? Or had it all gone wrong—had she meant to save me and kill him instead? That had been her original intent in getting me to bring him to her. Did any of it matter? Master Xiangu had removed enough of my Deathmark to lure Brent away from me.

  She’d died to do it, whether intentional or not.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Do not forget, Stygians, that your work is your life.

  I expect results. I expect nothing more than your best.”

  —Head Reaper Marin, November 15th

  There was a quiet murmur following Xiangu’s death. I would have muttered, too, if I had air in my lungs to speak. Instead, guilt began to wind its way into my heart. She had died for me. She had saved me, someone who owed me nothing.

  Why? Why did she do it?

  Neema screamed with her hands clapped around her face. She was buried in grief for only a moment before she flew at Brent.

  “Neema!” I wailed as I tried to thwart her attack.

  Mighty as Neema was, she did not present Brent with anything he couldn’t handle. She threw a couple of punches, screeched, and then collapsed over her Master’s ashes.

  I put my arm around her. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t talk to me right now,” Neema snarled.

  “I didn’t mean for it to go this way.”

  “Go away!” She shoved me off, sending me onto my back in the grass.

  As I struggled to stand, Brent’s weighted gaze followed every move I made. I soon found my footing and attempted to walk. From the corner of my eye, I noticed what was left of the Deathmark—the skull’s forehead—was flaking away as any other tattoo I had tried to give myself in the past. Little flecks of black ink blew off when the breeze caressed my arm. If I rubbed my skin, the marking would be gone forever. But I left it alone in exchange for meeting eyes with Brent.

  Was it right to ask him if the hunt was over? Was it safe to approach him?

  By Hades, did I even want to approach him now after everything that had happened?

  Brent, it seemed, silently asked the same questions. He lingered in front of Xiangu’s ashes. Perhaps he, too, was paralyzed in disbelief that he no longer carried the burden of being my Grim Reaper. At least for now. When it was my time to go, he was still the one who would be charged with ferrying my soul.

  Since Brent did not move or speak, I was the first to break the silence. I gave Delia, Papa, and Nicodemus a quick glance.

  The last time we had kissed was before our final attack on Marin. The last time we had looked at each other lovingly was not long after that kiss. For over a month, Brent had been my opponent. I had run halfway across the continent to hide from him. We had faced off like enemies. And now, after all of that, the test was over.

  “What—what does that mean?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said in that beautiful Southern drawl.

  “Is it over?”

  He gave Neema the respect she deserved and stepped around her. I had to admit that seeing Brent come toward me induced a panic I could not control. I had exerted so much energy running from him. The instinct kicked in, and it wanted me to bolt. But I attempted to temper my quivering body when Brent came close enough to draw me into a hug.

  “Are you upset that you killed her when it should’ve been me?” I asked.

  “I followed the Deathmark. I did my job,” he said.

  “But you killed the wrong person.”

  “The rules of Styx don’t agree with you.”

  I winced when he lifted my right arm and inspected the crumbling lines of Marin’s Deathmark that clung to my pale flesh. Brent stared for the longest time, watching them.

  He brushed the last Deathmark remains from my skin. His fingers lingered over the now empty spot. I feared he might tell me that Xiangu’s work wasn’t enough. But his ocean blue eyes softened.

  “It’s over, Ollie. Xiangu did it.”

  “But she’s dead because of it.” Tears blurred my eyes. I didn’t fall to the ground in wracking sobs, and I didn’t pull him close. I couldn’t move for fear of disintegrating into my vast assortment of feelings.

  “She chose this option,” he said, because I must have looked like glass about to shatter. “It’s over, Ollie. It’s all over.”

  He put his arms around my waist and lifted me off the ground in a show of celebration. I could not immediately hug him back. My body—no, my bones—would have broken and my muscles would have snapped from the tension that had held me captive for so long. Marin and Styx’s bizarre world had been increasingly advanced levels of awful. Brent had been the one thing that could destroy me. How was I supposed to shed that tension to expose the side of me that loved him right down to the core of my soul?

  My sagging, trembling reaction to his embrace didn’t diminish his affection. Strong enough to hold me to him without my arms wrapped around him too, he dropped his head into the crook of my neck and shoulder. His grip on my waist tightened another inch. Had I wanted to hug him back, I couldn’t. He held me so close that I could not move. And as I felt his shallow breaths shift to long, deep intakes of air, I understood that this hug was for him. Like me, he was relieved and exhausted. Perhaps he, too, was as delicate as glass right now. Perhaps he would break if squeezed too tightly, leaving behind ghosts of what was.

  I could not say what was the greater load—to be the hunted or to have to be the reluctant hunter—but in truth, it didn’t matter. Coming to this realization and knowing that Brent was no longer out to finish me, I found myself snaking my way around him, starting with my legs around his hips as I tried to quell the fear of him that still resided in me. I hooked my heels, unraveled my arms from inside his cage of muscle and locked my hands around his neck.

  “We did it,” I said into his ear, feeling the soft bristles of his beard brush against my cheek. “We survived.”

  We only surv
ived because of Xiangu. I could not thank her now. I could not show her my gratitude. She paid the ultimate price for my series of unfortunate events. Whether she chose this path or not meant nothing to my conscience. At the same time that Brent’s lips led a trail of kisses from the base of my neck to my own lips, guilt spread across my entire being.

  In the past two years, Brent and I had spent no more than a full week together at a time. Yet this closeness was not foreign. I knew him, how his lips moved, how his skin tasted, the feel of his beard against my flesh, the shivers his entire being gave me. I remembered the allure of his musky cologne.

  His kiss had not changed. He still began with a subtle pass over my parted mouth that soon evolved into passion that spoke of no bounds. But we kept our first kiss since that fateful day in Lethe restrained. We had fought for more time, and we won. There would be another chance to rekindle what was briefly taken from us.

  My nervous fingers wound their way into his overgrown hair, holding his head in place as I pressed my forehead to his. Our mouths still flirted with a kiss or two. But this was my chance to drink Brent in, to reacquaint myself with the little stress lines around his eyes. Maybe by doing this I would wash away the fear that lingered.

  “Xiangu died to help me…I don’t know what to say.”

  “It should’ve been you,” Neema answered, still bowed over her Master’s remains.

  The break in her voice was enough to bring Brent and me back from our reverie. He lowered me to the ground. My feet felt like they floated on cotton when they touched the grass.

  “I’m sorry, Neema. I never believed this would happen.”

  Neema look at me with fire in her eyes. “Neither did she. You come in here, asking for help. Instead, Xiangu is dead. It should’ve…been…you.”

  Delia leaned against Papa’s chest, tears streaming small rivers down her rosy cheeks. Papa and Nicodemus did not cry, not that I expected them to, but their eyes were soft, faces relaxed.

  Why Xiangu offered herself on my behalf, why I deserved her kindness above another’s was not entirely clear. Selfishly, I wouldn’t ask any questions. Sometimes we did things for people because it was the right thing to do, not necessarily the easiest or smartest. I would know.