The Reaper's Embrace

by Abigail Baker

  The flash of a bomb went off, sending a wave of energy spiraling out of us and at our enemies. Everything in its path, trees, debris from the homestead, bones and limbs of the dead, and the Trivials were sent off their feet and hurling into the air. As they did, their clothing and flesh melted from their bones. Skeletons, white as the moon, landed in piles on the ground.

  The descent from this level of heat always came quickly. I found myself standing amid piles of ash and bones long before the dust and smoke settled. My skin was back to its pale color. My dreadlocks hung still. My clothes untouched. Behind me was the rustle of leaves. I glanced over my shoulder to see Brent climbing to his feet. He had been thrown, too, but was untouched like me.

  My first instinct was to run to him and see if he was okay. But I didn’t when I spotted many sets of eyes staring from the shadows of the forest. There were more of them. So many I couldn’t count. All that was visible was their gold, glowing eyes, but it was enough to tell me that this last blast of heat was not enough to do away with them all.

  “Where are they coming from?” I said to Brent as he steadied himself at my side.

  “I don’t know.” His voice dripped with exhaustion. I was sure he was pondering the very same question that I was—when would we run out of steam? When would we lose the battle?

  “I can’t do that again. I need time to regenerate.” My body was cool now, and it would remain so for some time.

  The gold eyes grew brighter as they began to move through the trees toward us.

  “Ollie.” Brent grabbed my hand. “We’ll go down fighting. The two of us.”

  Those words weren’t exactly what I wanted to hear. I squeezed his fingers against mine. The bones in our hands rubbed together. But he was right. We would do this together. We would fight no matter how hard it would be. I would stand by his side as he would stand by mine. After two years of being separated, together was all that mattered.

  He took my hand in his. “I love you, darlin’.”

  For the first time since we reconnected, I could hear his voice, believe at least a little in his love without the pain of terror lingering in my heart. But I couldn’t say it back. He seemed to understand—he didn’t push me.

  Brent and I mentally prepared for the worst, but what emerged from the darkness of the forest wasn’t another army of Trivials. The first sign of hope came from two young girls and a boy, ones I recognized from my last visit to the homestead. Amber, Belle, and Patrick—each taller and more grown up than the last time that I saw them—ran in our direction, their faces filled with a mix of relief and cheer. Behind them came Sue Ellen, Brent’s sister-in-law, and the rest of the rebels who had used the homestead as their home.

  Brent’s knees hit the ground when his nieces and nephew threw themselves around him. They squealed in a mix of tears and joy. Brent didn’t look up at me, but I still saw little tears forming in his blue eyes. They weren’t dead. They had survived somehow.

  But then whose body parts had we seen?

  Sue Ellen was in a housedress that pulled tightly around her wide curves. Her hair was disheveled and her clothing muddy. Upon quick glance, every one of the rebels and Brent’s family were dirty, like they had been hiding deep in the woods. She grabbed my hand and pulled me into an embrace. Sue Ellen only came up to my chest, so she used my breasts as a pillow as she held tight. Just as fast as she pulled me close, she stepped back and gave me a scrutinizing once-over with her gold-tinted eyes.

  “I knew you were powerful the moment I met you,” she said.

  She then grabbed on to Brent and hugged him, her face twisted with grief. The children moved away from their uncle and rushed me, putting their little arms around me in thanks for saving them from the Trivials.

  As our reunion continued, more and more Reapers emerged from the woods. They thanked us and shook our hands or hugged us. They inspected the Trivials’s bones that were scattered across the landscape.

  “Where’s James?” Brent asked me.

  I shrugged. “He must’ve taken off. We didn’t get him—that I know.”

  “Great.” He raked his fingers through his hair before he pointed at the piles of limbs that we both had thought belonged to his family right before we entered the fight of our lives. “Who do those belong to?”

  Sue Ellen’s brow crinkled and tears poured down her wrinkled, dirty cheeks. “Wallie and some of the others tried to fight them off so we could escape.”

  I didn’t have to be Matched with Brent to feel his heart stop.

  “Your…your brother tried. He didn’t make it,” she said with a hitch in her brittle voice.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Even the strongest men cry.”

  —Lorelei Balanchine

  The news of Wallie’s death was like a dagger to all of us. Brent vanished into the woods without speaking a word. Sue Ellen tried to chase after him. Her legs weren’t quick enough, however. She lost him after a hundred feet.

  I had never seen this side to Brent. Thus far, I had been the one to lose everything—Mama and Eve. When he lost me two years ago, I hadn’t been there to witness the fallout on his end. This time I knew, like I knew my own heart, not to follow him straightaway. He wasn’t trying to solicit comfort by storming off in grief. The Eidolon needed his space.

  When Sue Ellen returned, wiping her eyes on the sleeves of her housedress, I began to speak without realizing words were spilling from my mouth. “How many did you lose?”

  “Twelve friends and family, including Wallie. They tried to fight, but…plain Reapers ain’t no good against Trivials. There are more of them, you know.”

  I nodded. And then, because I didn’t know what else to say that made any sense or felt worthy of such a loss, I stood silent with my hand in Sue Ellen’s. We listened to the sounds of other rebels cleaning the body parts and blood from the land. On the forest’s edge, Amber, Belle, and Patrick sat in a circle, petting Dudley, each as silent as dolls as they waited for their uncle to come back. Dudley had no idea why the children were sad. Their petting him was enough for him to sit at their sides, though.

  After long, I couldn’t handle the grief, the weight of it bearing down on my heart, and I gave Sue Ellen’s hand a soft squeeze before parting from our connection. We exchanged solemn looks. She knew where I was headed.

  It took me over thirty minutes to find him sitting on a fallen tree trunk next to a trickling creek. He must have heard me coming. The dead fall leaves crunched under my boots. But even though I approached, sounding like an elephant proudly stomping toward him, he did not look at me when I sat down on the log next to him.

  The air was brisk. The smell of impending snowfall was aloft. Once my feet stilled, the forest went peacefully quiet. Not even the sounds from the homestead a mile away could be heard.

  I chose not to put my hand on Brent’s. Instead, I sat next to him, silent, and motionless. As we both breathed, little puffs of condensation danced in front of our mouths. The temperature was dropping. Snow was coming. My heart warmed a little at the idea of winter and how it reminded me of Quebec City, the place that was and always would be my home.

  “It’s my fault,” Brent said after several minutes. “I hunted Trivials for Marin when I was his prisoner.”

  “Don’t blame yourself. You didn’t know this would happen.”

  “It’s because of me that Wallie had to defend his family. I should’ve known what I did would come back at me. Those Trivials are right to be angry. I just wish I could fix everything.” He leaned forward, placing his elbows on his knees. Brent refused to look my way, and it was obvious why. He had been crying.

  “You did what you had to do, what Marin forced you to do.” I sat straight, trying to avoid the glisten of sadness in his blue eyes. “There’s no good in blaming yourself for things you couldn’t have seen coming.”

  “You blamed yourself for Eve’s death even though it wasn’t your fault.”

  “I did.” I still do.

  “I
t’s built in us to feel guilty no matter why.”

  “Maybe. But we have agency. We can choose to let it weigh on us or not.”

  Slowly, he nodded because he knew I was right. The words I spoke weren’t because I was some ultra-introspective life guru who had spent decades in a mountain meditating on life’s greatest challenges. Those words were the same words he would have said to me had our roles been reversed.

  I threaded my arm around his and rested my cheek against his shoulder. There was nothing else for me to say. I knew what it was like to lose someone I loved, someone whose blood felt like it was on my own hands. Eve. Mama. I got Brent’s pain better than anyone else could. Sometimes, the only balm for it was to sit in silence with a trusted companion. And that must have been what Brent needed because I felt his body shake when he began to sob as he faced the truth that his brother was no longer part of this world. I held him close until his grief ebbed into calmness. I didn’t let go. I wouldn’t.

  When I peeled my eyes open to give our surroundings a quick inspection, because enemies still lurked in the shadows, I spotted someone watching us from the other side of the creek. I was familiar enough now with ghosts not to grow tense or frightened.

  “Brent,” I whispered for him to see what I was seeing.

  “I know.” He wiped his eyes on his shirtsleeves. He didn’t look up at his brother Wallie’s ghost and those of several other Reapers who’d presumably died by the hands of Trivials in this place. They were misty and grey, almost sickly in appearance. They were in no-man’s land as Brent had said we would have been had we lost the fight. “They’ve been hovering for a while now.”

  Somehow, I hadn’t noticed them before. I was too focused on Brent to see. “Can you help them?”

  “I can’t send them onward. I don’t think even their assigned Reaper could now that their souls were torn out of their bodies like that. But maybe a Head Reaper…” Brent glanced in the ghosts’ direction. They needed his help, just like Eve had needed his help. They would linger in the woods of Kentucky forever, sad and lonely, if he did not.

  “Can I have your necklace?” Brent asked for the same lotus pendant that still held Eve’s poor, broken soul. The necklace never came off. I kept it close to my beating heart as a reminder that throughout all of this, my goal was still to ensure Eve’s salvation. She would cross over and be with her mother again. I would see to it.

  Yet, I didn’t hesitate to remove the necklace for Brent because I knew he respected its importance to me. He would be careful not to destroy it.

  He enfolded the pewter charm in his massive hand, stood up from the log, and walked through the trickling brook and toward the ghosts, crossing the water like Charon in the Greek myth crossing the river Styx.

  Once Brent ferried each of the lost souls, starting first with his brother’s, into the necklace, he slipped it back around my neck, kissed my forehead, and whispered “thank you” in my ear. The sight of watching a Grim Reaper never grew old. Watching them draw souls—human or living—from one place and send them to another was so simple, so effortless. Sometimes if I blinked, I missed the process entirely.

  The pendant felt heavier than before. And I hoped that the newcomers would be kind to Eve.

  …

  Sue Ellen and a few of the rebels explained what had happened shortly before we had arrived. They told us the story inside a circle just on the edge of the woods where everyone, including Brent and I, looked over our shoulders in careful watch.

  Hours before we had arrived, a band of Trivials uncovered the homestead. They had claimed they were there to settle a score with Brent Hume and, before anyone could react, they tore into the crowd. The attack had come swiftly. And the truth of it was, there were no Stygians powerful enough to bring down the gang of Trivials. There were no Eidolons, no Scriveners. Even Watchmen couldn’t have been able to stop the Trivials. The Trivials had known this.

  “They would’ve killed us all,” Sue Ellen said. “But Wallie told us to run. We ran into the woods. But the screams. Oh Hades, those screams.”

  I put my arm around the grieving woman. Reliving that moment for us—the moment her husband died for her and their children’s safety—was not necessary. We didn’t need to know the details. We had seen enough in the pile of body parts.

  “Their souls, Brent, what will happen to them?” asked a rebel named Puck with a red beard and cutting blue eyes. He certainly wasn’t a Hume. Not all of the rebels were. Yet he looked like he fit into the Kentucky countryside.

  “I’m going to save them…somehow,” Brent said.

  “These Trivials were connected to Xiangu. I met their leader, James, and some others in Colorado.” I added what little I could to the conversation. “Do you think they know about Marin?”

  “What about Marin?” Sue Ellen asked.

  Brent and I both sighed, as a statement that said neither of us knew where to begin exactly.

  “Marin is dead. Ollie took him out a month ago,” he said.

  The group’s collapsing poise seemed to lift when Brent confessed the news. Their eyes brightened, their shoulders straightened. I wanted to join them in some sort of high-five dance party, but I couldn’t. Sue Ellen was the only one who was not impressed.

  “This is not good news,” she said.

  “Not exactly.” Her words stung, even though I agreed. It would’ve been nice to get some credit for my work.

  “Marin appears to be alive according to his newscasts,” said Puck.

  “I know,” Brent hissed. “He—or someone—planned it all out very well. The problem now is not him but the mess he left behind. Those Trivials are going to destroy Styx once they know he’s gone, if they don’t already know.”

  “Can’t we get the Eidolons and Scriveners to help us stop them?” Puck asked.

  “Possibly.” Brent could’ve gone on to admit that Marin was a Scrivener and never actually crossed over billions of souls, human or Stygian. He could have shared that Marin was the cause of Styx’s current issues, the Trivials included. And he could have defended the Trivials for running amok after they had spent years getting annihilated by Eidolons, all on Marin’s orders. He didn’t, however, because it would not help our cause, least not at the moment.

  What I knew about Styx today was that it was a complex web of deceit, selfishness, and cunning. Most Stygians were good, kindhearted folk. The others, the ones who held power, were not, and they ruled over us, some like iron-fisted dictators and others like sneaky behind-the-scenes manipulators.

  We had four things to settle before Styx could be whole again: reveal Marin’s demise and his true identity, make peace with the Trivials, cross over the billions waiting for redemption, and elect new, honest leadership. This wasn’t anything we could do alone. The entirety of Styx would need to help.

  “Brent,” I said while everyone broke off into groups to discuss the latest bombshell news. “We can’t linger. We need to go back to Quebec. If the Interceptor is still working, we can begin fixing this mess with an announcement.”

  “You’ll tell Styx about Marin?” he whispered.

  I nodded. The thought of going on television again sickened me, but it was the only way. Styx needed to know the truth so that it could finally unite, not remain divided through hate and fear. And they needed to hear it from me, seeing as I was the one to bring Marin down. I would begin to correct all the wickedness that my kin had caused. I would have to.

  “Sue Ellen, you and the kids and the rebels can’t stay here,” Brent said and everyone paused to listen. “We all have to get to Quebec City as soon as possible—before the Trivials get there.”

  “I’m not leaving my home,” she fired back.

  “It’s nothing if the Trivials get into Lethe. We are nothing if the Trivials get into Lethe. Do you understand?” The fire in Brent’s voice was enough to silence Sue Ellen. “We leave at dawn. All of us. Together.”

  “We should reach out to other rebel cells,” Puck interjected. “The mo
re of us, the better.”

  “Fine. You contact whomever. If every Stygian in the world needs to descend upon Lethe, then that’s what will happen.” Brent’s command rolled off his tongue like an experienced general. He was taking up the role of leader, and though he had no interest in being one, he wore the hat well.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “You always have a choice. You have a choice to act or react.”

  —Buddy Hennessey, Stygian Rebel

  A hand on my shoulder roused me from a deep sleep, the sort of sleep that refuses to let go even as you re-enter reality. I blinked away the vestiges of a dream world full of good things like puppies and limitless coffee. The thought of staying in that dream was much nicer than facing the dank gloom of Styx.

  I rolled onto my side to see a wide-eyed Puck staring down at me. In his opposite hand was a smartphone. When I started to wake Brent, who was fast asleep beside me, Puck wagged his head.

  “Shh. Come with me,” he said.

  Had I been any other living being than a Master Scrivener, I would have taken his invitation and shoved it right up his backside. A Reaper asking me to come with him in the wee hours of the morning was bad news. I was streetwise. I knew what kind of trouble could lurk in such an invitation.

  But I was a Master Scrivener, and I would, if I had to, melt this Reaper to the ground. Perhaps that skill made me cocky and reckless.

  “Did you see this?” he said once we were far enough from the campsite not to disturb anyone. He pressed a button on the phone, and it sparked to life. A beam of light lit both of our faces. I squinted and tried to focus on the small, rectangular screen.

  “I remember you,” Puck said. “I remember your speech. I saw it live on television before I came here to join the cell. I heard through sources that you rigged a device to override broadcasting.”

  As I listened to Puck nervously speak, showing in the warble of his voice that he had not intended to do me any harm but, in fact, was showing reverence, I watched the screen. The sound was so low I could not make out what was being said, but, somehow, I didn’t need to know. I recognized the face on the screen, and it was not the Head Reaper Marin or any of his well-known news anchors. James the Trivial peered back at me with his eerily blank eyes.