For the Birds

by Angela Roquet

  “I, uh, took a wrong turn?” I stammered.

  “Try again.”

  I sighed. “Look, I just wanted to see what my schedule was going be like next week.” I held my hands up innocently.

  “Leave. Now.” She stepped aside, leaving a narrow passage for me to slip by her on my way out the door. I held my breath as I did.

  “Oh, and reaper?” she addressed me again.

  I froze and looked over my shoulder.

  “Don’t let me catch you in here again. Do you understand?”

  “Of course.” I nodded sheepishly and continued on down the hall.

  The receptionist gave me and odd look, but she didn’t say anything as I passed her desk and pushed through a baffle gate to rejoin Meng and the other two Fates. I was ready for our visit to be over.

  Apparently, Meng was too.

  Clotho’s sweet disposition had worn off. She mirrored her sister’s defensive stance, with both hands grasping her hips and her chin pushed out in defiance. “The souls are like slumbering infants after being churned in the waters of the Lethe. They’re easier to handle that way. Do you really expect us to wake them and force them to choke down your wretched concoction?” Clotho snapped.

  Meng snarled back at her like a rabid lapdog, shaking the phone the other receptionist had brought to her in the air. “My tea good enough for Horus. Lazy girl! You sacrifice quality to keep job easy?” The phone slipped from her fingers and plunked into the pool.

  Clotho cheeks puffed up as her eyes widened. “Lazy? Lazy! Why, I’ll show you lazy, you old heifer—”

  “We should really get going.” I looped my arm under Meng’s and steered her away from the furious Fates. They gaped after us, as if amazed that I would have the nerve to lay my hands on a deity, even one as loathsome as old Lady Meng.

  “Thank you for your time,” I called over my shoulder, trying to muffle Meng’s cursing until I could get her out of earshot. Once we were down the two flights of stairs and she didn’t need my aid any longer, Meng jerked her arm out of my grasp.

  “Stupid girls. Stupid factory. Stupid excuse for lousy reincarnation job!” She turned and waved her fist in the direction of the roost, but we were a safe distance away now.

  Just then, a whistle blew, and the souls in the main room began to stir, preparing to leave for the evening. Meng cringed at the oncoming hoard and let me take her arm again, leading us back down the hall and through the baffle gates. Luckily, Lachesis wasn’t waiting in the lobby. I gave a quick nod to the receptionists as Meng and I exited the factory. Her taxi waited patiently.

  Meng looked up at me and sighed, losing some of her fury as the creases around her eyes sagged. “Thank you. This meeting no good, but you keep your oath.”

  “You’re welcome,” I said slowly.

  The thank you felt weird coming from Meng. It felt even weirder when she pulled a little teabag out of a pocket in her kimono.

  “For bad day,” she said, stuffing it in my hand. “Not like fresh brew I make, but still good in pinch.”

  I helped her inside the cab and had barely closed the door, when my phone rang. “Hello?” I answered on the first ring.

  “Miss me, love?” Bub said on the other end.

  “You have no idea.” I turned my back on the cab and the factory and made my way towards the nearest travel booth.

  Bub sighed. “Sorry I didn’t phone last night. After your text, my itinerary became substantially more complicated.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Apparently, your fishy visitor has been poaching Persephone’s sirens.”

  “Really? So was one of the mer-hags responsible for the smash-and-grab at Hades’ place in Tartarus?”

  “I’m not entirely sure yet, although she does seem awfully offended by the accusation, hence the attempted drowning.”

  “How do you suppose she knew where to find me?”

  “Well, you are rather popular lately, and your permit to take your ship over wasn’t exactly top secret. I don’t think she was sincerely hell-bent on killing you though. It was more for show, to prove a point, I think.”

  “Drama queen, much?” I grumbled.

  “Exactly.” Bub sighed. “I’m terribly sorry. I haven’t made many friends during this investigation.”

  “I’m not making many friends lately either. Join the club.”

  Bub chuckled softly. “Let me make it up to you. Meet me for dinner tomorrow night?”

  “Hmmm. I don’t know. Will there be another assassination attempt?”

  “Anything is possible.”

  “When and where?”

  “The Hearth. Eight sharp.”

  “The Hearth?” I paused. “Are we just asking for trouble now?”

  The Hearth was the fanciest restaurant in Limbo City. It also featured great big open windows on all sides. It was perfect for the paparazzi, which meant we would be on the cover of Limbo’s Laundry in no time. We would also be nice and visible for anyone wanting to crash our dinner, or you know, kill us dead.

  “I’m bringing a few undercovers with me,” Bub said slyly.

  “So I’m bait now?”

  “No, pet. I just don’t think we should allow anyone to keep us from having a good time.”

  “Mmm hmm.” I wasn’t convinced.

  “I’ll take you shoe shopping if anything bad happens.”

  I grinned. “You like shoe shopping more than I do.”

  “So it’s a win-win.” I could hear the smile in his voice.

  I hung up giggling, but reality had not escaped me. Dinner at the Hearth was a really bad idea. I was most definitely being used as bait. I just hoped we could make it through desert before someone ruined our night.

  Chapter 8

  “True friends stab you in the front.”

  -Oscar Wilde

  I really should have gone home after the nerve-shattering meeting with the Fates. I had fully intended to. Promise. But Purgatory Lounge was just too inviting. A shot or two of whiskey didn’t sound half bad either. I immediately regretted the impulse the moment I stepped through the front door.

  “Well, well! Look who we have here.”

  Gabriel was tanked. He was trying to hold himself upright with a pool cue, but his wings flutter sporadically, trying to make up for the difference in his balance… or lack thereof.

  I smiled tightly and took a seat at the bar. “Hey, Gabe.”

  Gabriel was my best friend. At least, he had been. We weren’t on the best of terms lately. While he hadn’t been thrilled about me dating Maalik at first, he had eventually warmed up to him. He was outright outraged about me dating Bub, and he hadn’t even begun to thaw on the subject. What irked me the most was the fact that he was dating a demon too. I don’t do double standards well.

  Purgatory was fairly empty, but it was only Thursday. There were a few nephilim scattered around the pool tables, doing a little better job of staying upright than Gabriel, and a handful of souls, minding their own business in a corner booth. The place reeked of cheap cigarettes and barbeque, and the jukebox droned out sorrowful Elvis tunes, like it was lonely for the weekend crowd to come back around.

  Xaphen, the owner of Purgatory Lounge and father of Gabriel’s better half, appeared behind the bar and lit a cigarette by pressing it to the halo of flames dancing around his temples. It was a nifty little party trick that I’d seen too many times to count.

  “What’ll it be, missy?” he asked in his gravelly voice.

  “Two shots of whiskey and a chicken basket with fries. To-go, please.”

  Gabriel stumbled up next to me. “I’ll have some o’ that whiskey to-go, too,” he laughed and followed it up with a hiccup.

  Xaphen glowered at him. “The only thing you’re getting to-go is a thump’n, boy. Ain’t my girl got you straightened out yet?”

  “Can’t a guy get any peace around here? I shoulda just stayed in Heaven tonight, but I can’t get a decent drink there to save my –hic- life.” His tangle o
f blond curls was especially unruly tonight, and he smelled extra ripe. He was on a drinking binge. I was half tempted to ask what was eating him, but the surety of a smartass reply kept me at bay.

  Xaphen kept a stern eye on Gabriel as he slid my shots of whiskey across the bar. Then he slipped off to the kitchen to fill my food order. I slammed the shots before attempting a conversation with the drunken archangel.

  “Crashing with us tonight?”

  Gabriel snorted and waved a finger in the air. “I have my own room at Holly House tonight. Ms. Council Lady, her holiness, one of my feathered brethren, er, sistren… Holly Spirit hooked me up good. Got a great deal on one of her studios for the week.” He nodded his head, agreeing with himself.

  “That’s nice.”

  Xaphen appeared with my order and I slipped him a hefty coin. He gave me a nod and a two-fingered wave as I stood to leave. I liked Xaphen, but like most other demons I knew, he had begun acting differently around me since I’d started dating Bub. I couldn’t quite grasp what it was. It felt like some strange combination of curiosity, respect, and caution. I wasn’t sure if I cared for it.

  Gabriel frowned as I tucked my food order under one arm. I sighed and tried to smile. “Guess I’ll see you around.”

  He struggled to pull his bloodshot eyes up to meet mine and licked his chapped lips. “Yeah. See you around.”

  I left Purgatory Lounge with a growing pit in my stomach. I didn’t feel like eating anymore. I hated being on the outs with Gabe. We were both pretending not to give a shit, and we both knew it. A three-hundred-year-old friendship is not so easily thrown away. The big question was all about who would break first and apologize. I wasn’t the one being a big fat hypocrite, so I’d be damned if it was going to be me. That meant waiting it out for him. I’d done it before, and so had he. It didn’t make things suck any less. Immortal or not, three months is still an awfully long time to be without your partner-in-crime.

  The condo was quiet when I got home. Josie and Kevin’s door was closed. They were probably already tucked in for the night. I’d given them quite the harvest list so that I could take off early to be Meng’s escort. Jenni’s door was cracked open, but I could see that her bed was still neatly made. Grim was working her all kinds of odd hours. I was still relieved she had gotten that particular promotion rather than me.

  The city lights twinkled distantly through the living room window, turning the white sofas and rugs a dusty blue. I pulled off my work robe and threw it over one of the dining room chairs before kicking off my boots. Then I thought better of it and put everything neatly away in the coat closet. The classy condo at Holly House made me feel like a shmuck anytime I got lazy about tidying things.

  I put my dinner in the fridge and poured a glass of water from the tap before heading back to my bedroom. The hounds were already snuggled up at the foot of my bed. Saul thumped his tail against the ivy bedspread in greeting, and Coreen tipped her nose up for a pat as I walked by. I changed into an oversized tee shirt and grabbed one of my old history books out of my closet. Then I crawled under the covers and clicked open my phone to scan through the risky pictures I had collected from the records room at the factory.

  The notes from the Fates’ files were more extensive than the ones Grim handed out with the harvest dockets. I had been counting on that pretty heavily. There was a serial number for each soul in the upper right-hand corner of the page. The first table revealed mostly basic information about the soul’s current life, like their location, date of birth, and a brief death classification. Most of the files I had snapped pictures of were marked either as natural disaster or mass murder.

  The second half of the page had the details I was really interested in. The soul’s current beliefs were listed, along with their assigned afterlife. There was also a time line that charted the soul’s previous religious affiliations along the bottom of the page. It didn’t seem possible that several thousand years could be condensed down into a time line that only spanned the width of a single page, but there it was. Each of the soul’s lifetimes wasn’t necessarily marked. Sometime half a millennium would be sectioned off and labeled Christian or Muslim or Hindu. There wasn’t a lot to go on, but I had enough sense to figure out that I needed to find souls who believed in any given faith just before it gained some margin of popularity. I also needed to select souls that were destined for the Sea of Eternity, like atheists, agnostics, and the generally non-religious or neutral. I couldn’t risk anyone noticing the tracking bracelets Horus demanded I place on potential candidates. If I dumped the souls out in the middle of the sea, I didn’t have to worry about any of the gods’ spidey sense tingling when I made a delivery.

  I’d managed to snap photos of fifty or so files. Between zooming in and out with my phone and cross-referencing with my old history book, it took a good two hours to go through them all. I don’t know why I expected to find some epiphany-inducing bit of information. It’s not like the Fates kept record of which souls were original believers, and Grim would never ask them to—not in a million years. That would jeopardize the great mystery of his supreme rule.

  The souls in the files seemed pretty run-of-the-mill to me. There were only a couple that looked like they might possibly be worth checking out, and they happened to be in Arden’s territory. It was going to take some creative logic explaining why I should harvest those souls instead of him. Of course, I might finally get more than a nod out of Arden.

  One of the souls was scheduled for in the morning, so I ignored my grumbling stomach and clicked off the bedside light. I liked to be nice and rested before fulfilling my blackmail duties.

  Chapter 9

  “I’m sick of following my dreams. I’m just going to

  ask them where they’re goin’ and hook up with them later.”

  -Mitch Hedberg

  Friday morning started off like an apocalypse. I woke up covered in sweat, right after a night long quest for a soul that I never found, while being chased by demons that I was too afraid to fight. My stomach felt like a cement block, and my chest ached like I had just run a marathon. I stumbled into the kitchen to find Jenni, looking about as rough as I felt, rummaging through the cabinets in a frenzy.

  “What are you looking for?” I asked.

  She jumped and spun around with a snarl. “Where the hell is the coffee?”

  My jaw dropped. Jenni never snapped, and she certainly never swore. Her expression softened at my shock.

  “Sorry. It’s been a rough week,” she said awkwardly, the words rolling off her tongue like she wasn’t quite sure how to put them together.

  “No kidding. The coffee is in the refrigerator.” Where we’ve always kept it.

  “Thanks.”

  Jenni found the coffee and fired up an extra strong brew, while I filled the hounds’ dishes with Cerberus Chow. I dug my cold dinner out of the fridge and picked at it with far less vigor than the hounds munched at their breakfast. Purgatory fries were just never as good the day after. I tossed them after a few bites and fixed a cup of coffee. I was somewhat surprised that Jenni hadn’t offered to fix one for me, but she didn’t seem herself this morning. She gave me a forced smile as I reclaimed the barstool next to her at the breakfast bar.

  “Any big harvests planned for today?” she asked.

  “You tell me,” I laughed.

  She cocked her head to one side and snorted. “Oh, right. I guess I should have paid better attention. Grim has me running in circles.”

  “I bet.” I took a sip of my coffee and gagged. “Wow. Trying to raise the dead today?”

  “Sorry, I didn’t get any sleep last night.” She shrugged. “I better go get a shower.”

  “Yeah, me too.”

  I waited for Jenni to leave the room before dumping another spoonful of sugar in my cup and topping it off with creamer. Then I went to get the day started right by washing away the nightmare funk with an extra hot shower. After brushing my teeth and pulling on a pair of snug blue jeans and a
green, silk blouse, I was feeling better about the day.

  Kevin and Josie were choking down Jenni’s brew when I reemerged in the kitchen. I snickered at their sourpuss faces. Josie looked grumpier than usual. She liked her coffee black, so it wasn’t as easy to fix as mine had been. She dumped half her cup in the sink and filled it back up with water before popping it in the microwave, glaring at me the whole time.

  “That was totally Jenni’s fault,” I said.

  She blinked in surprise. “You mean she finally came home? It’s been two days.”

  “Really? Guess Grim’s getting his money’s worth. He probably shouldn’t have waited so long to hire a new second. Hard telling how much work she has to catch up on.”

  “I guess.” Josie shook her head and ran a hand through her spiky, short do. “It’s just not like Jenni to let anything get her down. I mean, she’s the one reaper known for being able to chew everything she bites off. That sounded way better in my head.” She laughed and fetched her coffee out of the microwave.

  The extra dark brew filled the condo with the smell of morning. It mingled with the hounds’ woodsy musk and the odor of their kibble breath. They waited patiently by the front door, black tails thumping a cheerful ditty on the hardwood floor.

  Kevin yawned and rubbed at his stubbly cheek. “Am I hanging with you today, boss lady?”

  “Maybe for a bit. I think I’m going to take you on a foreign harvest this morning.”

  That got a frown out of both of them.

  “Sometimes there’s an overflow and a reaper ends up harvesting outside of their territory. You should be prepared for something like that.”

  Josie folded her arms over the counter and propped her chin up with one hand. “That very rarely happens anymore.”

  “Well, Kevin is also fresh out of the academy. So he might like to sample a few of the different territories before deciding what classes he’ll eventually need in order to harvest in his preferred area.” I pulled my work robe out of the coat closet and rolled it up before stuffing it in a duffle bag along with the day’s harvest docket.