by KJ Harlow
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Also by KJ Harlow
War Within
KJ Harlow
Harlow Publishing
Copyright © 2017 by KJ Harlow
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover art by Aero Gallerie.
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Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Also by KJ Harlow
One
The Conflicted stumbled backward and fell onto the cobblestone path. I curled my lip in disgust, shaking off the stagnant water he had splashed up onto my boot. His comrades twitched on the ground before fizzing and disintegrating, their black ashes rising through the air. One moment they were there, the next, gone. I wiped my forehead with the back of my hand, my silver Lucent Gun glinting maliciously in the moonlight.
A crow cawed in the distance, appreciative of my efforts at Ridding the Conflicted. I peered down the street. Suburbia was so peaceful… and so dull. Street lamps cast their sickly yellow hue at regular intervals. I looked at my wrist out of habit then chuckled to myself. Time didn’t matter to me anymore, not since I died.
I couldn’t lose focus; I had to remember why I was here. My fingers tightened their grip on my weapon as I looked over my shoulder. A car was trundling up the road towards me. That was my cue to leave. I turned back the other way, visualized where I wanted to go and Soul Stepped towards my next destination. I blazed past houses, parks and the odd driver driving God knows where at this time of night. In three seconds I had traveled about 70 miles. I craned my neck up. Skyscrapers screamed up towards the starry night. I closed my eyes, threw open my arms and did a little twirl in the middle of the road. I loved coming to the city.
I stopped abruptly. A noise made me jerk my head up. I stared at a window on the 10th floor of a gray building to my right. I narrowed my eyes, trying to make out the shadows moving behind the darkened glass. Dante, Mortimer, Matylda… they were here, somewhere, watching my every move. I was outnumbered three-to-one but I didn’t care. In this case, I had the upper hand. If they wanted to play cat and mouse, fine.
I sped down laneways plastered with graffiti, zipped past seedy bars and whizzed through the secret paths of Melbourne that I knew too well. I smiled to myself. This new route was my latest work of “art”. With me as the paintbrush and the city as the canvas, I drew what would have looked like a giant middle finger to anyone looking down from above.
An apartment supported by scaffolding loomed up ahead of me: the final destination. I ran in, raced up the partially formed staircase and scrambled past abandoned stacks of building material. Perching on the 15th floor, I peered down. There was not a soul to be seen. I grunted to myself, satisfied. Let’s see them find me here.
The scaffolding quivered beneath me. Alarmed, I craned my neck back. Had they followed me all the way here? Maybe I was just imagining things. It shook this time. I lost my footing and slipped. I shrieked as I fell five stories. I threw my arms out searching for purchase and was able to grab onto a piece of scaffolding that was jutting out. There was something wrong. Was the apartment… swaying? My Lucent Gun fell out of its holster, plummeting to the ground. I looked down helplessly, my blood turning to ice at the faces I saw down below.
The Tormented were looking up at me.
“What’s the matter, Rose? Tor not here to save you?” Matylda twirled her chestnut-brown hair innocently before erupting in a fit of maniacal giggles.
“Stupid woman,” Mortimer spat, his dead gray eyes full of hate. Dante simply stood there, staring up at me. I was too busy trying not to slip to see his expression. I glanced down. The Tormented all had their Ombre Guns pointed at me.
I released my grip and fell, avoiding the flurry of bullets. I landed on a platform and used it as a springboard to jump back into the half-built apartment. Plaster was crumbling all around me as I felt the floor give out beneath me. I landed on some tiles on the floor below and barrel rolled out of the way just as some concrete crunched into the tiles. I spun around, looking wildly at the crumbling building. Either I get crushed as it imploded or go outside and face the Tormented.
I looked out the front of the rapidly collapsing apartment and spied the top of the next building. Acting on instinct, I ran towards a window that hadn’t been fitted with glass yet. Dodging falling debris, I accelerated and planted my foot on the ledge, launching myself through the air. I looked down, expecting to see the Tormented on the ground; there was nobody. They must have taken cover already. I looked forward and clawed at the air, desperately reaching up to the ledge. I started falling too early and found myself hurtling towards a window. I curled up into a ball, tucking my head between my knees. This was going to hurt.
The glass splintered into a thousand pieces as I crashed through. I unfurled myself, clutching my stomach. My face was wet. I brought a shaky hand up and touched my cheek: blood. I scrubbed it away with the back of my hand and unsteadily got to my feet. I had to keep moving. I looked around. I had landed through a balcony of an apartment. The bed was undisturbed, though there were unwashed dishes in the sink. Where were the occupants? I loped toward the door and carefully opened it. Peering left and right down the hall, I made my way towards the lift. I opened the door to the emergency stairs and started going up.
I flung open the door to the balcony. I ran up to the edge of the building I had just jumped from. It lay in a heap of rubble, a gray cloud of dust rising like a ghoul towards the sky. Squinting through my rectangular glasses, I searched for my Lucent Gun.
“Looking for this?” My hand instinctively flew to my holster, only for it to grab onto thin air. Damn it. I breathed out slowly and turned around. Dante stood there, watching me with a hint of a smile playing across his lips. Matylda and Mortimer stood behind him, a mixture of triumph and hatred etched on their faces.
My Lucent Gun hung precariously from his index finger. “Give it back to me,” I demanded, reaching a hand out. If I was fast enough, maybe I could rush up to him and take it straight from underne
ath his nose. No sooner had the idea left my head that I found myself face to face with the head of the Tormented. Taken my surprise, I took a step back and teetered at the edge of the building. I fell, only for Dante to grab onto my flailing arm. He dangled my gun lazily from his index finger. Abruptly, he pointed it at me.
“You have to make a choice now. Either I let you go or you die by your own gun.” The way he said it made it sound like I was choosing between either a latte or a cappuccino at my favorite café. He watched me silently as I struggled. I seethed, my eyes blazing defiantly up at him. He closed his eyes as if offended. Without warning, he let go of me. I plummeted off the edge of the apartment, my hair whipping around me. He stepped forward to where I had stood and peered down, pointing my Lucent Gun down at me. The last thing I saw was a familiar smile twitching from the corner of his lips before everything became white.
I lay on the floor of The Room gasping for air. I watched as the last of my projection folded into itself towards me. There were no more Tormented or Conflicted, just an exhausted Deliverer trying to catch her breath. I closed my eyes for a moment, visualizing Dante’s smile again. I shivered; it was unsettling how he looked at me. Even in my projection, it seemed like his eyes bore into the very depths of my soul as if he knew something about me that I didn’t know yet.
I opened my eyes again, staring up at the endless expanse of white. I couldn’t lie here forever. Death was expecting me. I sat up, swiveling my head to find where my Lucent Gun had landed. It was on my right – and in someone’s hand. I relaxed, my lips parting in a smile of acknowledgment.
“Hello, Death.” I got up into a kneeling position, sitting on my heels. “What brings you here?” The angel balanced the guard of my Lucent Gun on his index finger in the same way that Dante did in my projection. My smile faded.
“I just thought I’d come down and see how you were going,” he said, his voice deep and resonant. His hazel eyes flecked with bronze seemed to flash as I stood up and started walking towards him. Even after everything I had been through, I still didn’t know what to think about him. Technically he was my boss, but he treated me and the other Deliverers like family.
When I died, he offered me a contract: help him Cease the Tormented in exchange for a second chance at life. Little did I know that Stan, my boyfriend, had been turned into a Tormented. In the first mission that I led, I was responsible for Ceasing him. It was successful, although it wasn’t my gun that had Ceased him. Tor’s face swam up. I couldn’t deny that I was drawn to the tall, mysterious ex-member of the Norwegian army but every time I remembered how he took away my opportunity to Cease Stan, I felt my stomach knot in anger.
“Do you know why I want to meet with you?” Death asked, distracting me from my thoughts.
“I have some idea.” I stood a couple feet away from him, looking up at his face. I wasn’t short, five foot five, six, but I felt like tiny compared to his seven-foot frame. I reached out and took my Lucent Gun from his hand, grazing against it with my own. Being a spirit in the Underworld meant that I had no blood, which meant that I felt neither hot nor cold. However, Death emanated a sort of heat that I swore I could feel.
He regarded me, his face open and honest. “I wanted to talk to you about you.” I holstered my gun, looking at my weapon to buy myself some time. Why did he say it like that? What was he getting at?
“Can we talk about this someplace else?” Death looked at me curiously then nodded. In an instant, a projection started unpacking from his chest, filling the infinite dimensions of The Room. I looked around in awe as the whiteness became space. Stars speckled the interstellar fabric and winked at me. I stood on tiles of the purest ivory. It formed a path that led to a platform with a pedestal in the middle of it.
“The Edge,” Death said, looking towards the pedestal. “Did I ever mention that was what this place was called?” I shook my head, looking at my feet to hide my face from him. My eyes pricked as tears formed. Greg, fellow Deliverer and one of the loveliest souls to grace the Underworld was Ceased by Stan. It was here at The Edge that we said goodbye to him.
Death gestured at a long bench that was placed parallel to the ornate marble railings. He sat down and stretched his long legs out. He looked at me, his eyes warm and patient. I sat down next to him, wiping the tears from my eyes with the back of my hand.
“I miss them,” I said, my voice breaking. “Greg and Stan.” Death regarded me closely. He waited for me to continue talking.
“When I signed your contract, I didn’t know it would be this hard. I didn’t know that I would make friends only for them to be gone so soon. I didn’t know that I would have to point a gun at my boyfriend. I just wanted to go back, build a career in Forensics and watch Netflix all day again.” I looked up at Death, my eye brimming with sadness.
He reached out a hand and put it on my leg. His palm swallowed my knee. In an instant, I felt at peace. “You must be thinking, ‘how petty is this silly girl?’” I said, chuckling to myself. He withdrew his hand and gazed out in the distance. He seemed to focus on a star light years away, deep in thought.
“When you signed your contract, I knew it would be hard for you.” he turned and looked at me, a slight smile playing across his lips. “I also knew that my newest Deliverer would be able to lead a mission that would result in the Ceasing of a Tormented.”
“But I didn’t Cease Stan, Tor did.” I squeezed my eyes shut as my memories were triggered. I remembered a hole appearing in Stan’s head just as I was about to shoot him. I remember turning around and seeing Tor standing there. I remember crying as I held my boyfriend as his body was encased in light before he ceased to exist.
I opened my eyes and looked up. I felt like the millions of stars all around me were passing judgment. I didn’t care. I took a slow breath in and exhaled, counting out. One, two, three, four, five.
“I’m not going to keep you here if you don’t want to be here,” Death said. He didn’t sound threatening. “I know this has been difficult for you. I can release you from service. You’ll go back out to the waiting room and will be sorted.” He let these words sink in. “I’m not going to hold it against you if you do.”
His words bounced around in my mind. If I decided to quit now, what would be the best case scenario? Heaven, I guess. I’d go back out to the waiting room, wait to be sorted then get added to the list that would take me up to the pearly gates. I was a decent person in the time I was alive; my odds were pretty good. But was that what I wanted?
“I don’t know what I want, Death,” I said, continuing to stare up into space. “I did know what I wanted but that’s changed. Stan is gone.” We sat in silence for a few minutes, letting the majesty of the universe put us in our place.
“Stan is gone.” Death said, echoing my words. His words draped around my shoulders and weighed me down. I didn’t say anything. He stood up, towering over me. He slowly walked towards the platform. I watched him out the corner of my eye. He circled the pedestal, placing his large hand on the top. It started to glow faintly, dispersing white light. He raised his head and closed his eyes. For half a minute, he maintained this position.
Eventually, the white light disappeared. He dropped his head, opened his eyes and looked at me. I was now outright looking at him intently. What had just happened?
“Stan is well.” Death said. He smiled as my eyes flew open in shock.
“How did you–”
“He’s friends with Greg now. They’re talking about you.” My jaw dropped. Death walked down off the platform and back down the tiled path. He walked past me and towards the door.
“Wait!” I exclaimed. I stood up and looked at Death. His hand was on the door knob but he didn’t move it. Ten seconds passed as I grappled with emotions that were overflowing from my mind.
“I don’t have all day.” Death said, a hard edge lining his usually soft timbre. “I’m a busy angel, you know.”
“What are they saying about me?” I said, taking a few steps
towards Death. He twisted the door knob and started moving out. He looked back at me, his eyes glinting mysteriously.
“Think about what you want. Once you have decided, come and find me. I’ll tell you then.” Before I could protest, he closed the door and I was alone again. I clenched my fists. Was Death playing mind games or did he really have a way to communicate with the Ceased? I stood up and stretched, exhaling slowly. There wasn’t any point getting so worked up about it. If Death wanted me to give him an answer, I needed to be in an environment that would make this easier. I closed my eyes and thought about my favorite café. When I opened them, I was standing in the middle of the room, gazing at the walls lined with an array of chocolates. A cute barista smiled at me from behind the coffee machine as he frothed some milk.
I took a table for two and ordered my usual flat white. I played with a packet of sugar absent-mindedly as I waited. What did I want? It was such a simple question that I couldn’t answer. If I continued as I currently did, there was every risk that I could be Ceased by the Tormented. I could also defeat the Tormented, get my second chance at life then start anew. If I threw in the towel and opted for judgment, I could go to Heaven or Hell. I growled in frustration and vigorously roughed up my hair.
“Hey, you.” I jumped as I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned around only to relax as I saw who it was.
“Tracy,” I placed my hand on hers. “Don’t scare me like that.”
“Anyone ever tell you that you’re jumpy?” She grinned at me wickedly. I looked back over my shoulder and glared at her.
