by Lizzy Ford
"I don’t want to talk! I want my life back!"
"This is your life."
"Absolutely not!” she snapped. “I’m not psychotic, I didn’t have amnesia yesterday, I’ve never had a son! I don’t care what anyone says, not Dr. Williams, not my sister, not you!"
"You weren't supposed to remember anything before Toby appeared in your life," he said.
"What're you talking about?"
He looked at her, a penetrating stare that made her again regret drawing his attention. She couldn’t read his face. He rose and, with methodical patience, swirled the trench around him, placed the sword on the inside with an array of other weaponry and stalked to the door.
All it took was a hissy fit to get rid of him. The door closed behind him. She sagged into the depths of her chair.
"Mama, do I have to go to school today?" Toby called.
She ground her teeth, on the verge of throwing her cup at the wall before her.
"It’s not working."
The man in the white lab coat, Ully, jerked from his hunched position over a keyboard, and fear flashed in his eyes. The unease passed quickly as he saw which death dealer stood before him.
"Of course it is," he said, twisting in the chair to face him.
Gabriel leaned his hip against the counter and crossed his arms in physical disagreement. He rarely spoke, and when he did, people rarely failed to take his words seriously. As the oldest and most revered of the death dealers, only the damned millennial generation failed to flinch when he spoke.
"Okay, so maybe it isn’t," Ully said quickly. "You’re sure?"
Gabriel said nothing but pinned him with a glare that had killed a few men outright.
"Okay, fine."
The brunet scientist leaned forward to hit the intercom button.
"Kris, death dude’s here. We need to talk!" he called cheerfully, then spun and started toward the conference room at the end of a lab that stretched the size of a football field.
Gabriel followed, ignoring the rows of delicate glassware, Bunsen burners, machines, and other science toys that employed the two dozen immortal scientists. The lighting was harsh in the lab; he didn’t remove his sunglasses until they’d entered the romantically lit conference room. The brunet flipped the overhead lights on, and Gabriel flipped them off.
The conference room was silent, the air purified, the lighting perfect. Gabriel sat opposite the door while Ully flung himself into a cushy chair.
"I wondered where that went," the scientist murmured as he withdrew a vial of violet gel from his lab coat. He whistled as he shook it, and the color went from purple to orange.
"This is bad shit," he said to no one in particular. "It’s contaminated."
Gabriel didn’t need to understand modern science. Death dealers were immune to disease, poison, and any other thing humans could throw at them. They had to be, because mankind had been trying to outsmart Death since the beginning of time.
"Gabriel."
The immortal Council's leader, a silver-haired man with violet eyes and a face untouched by time, stood at the entrance. He was one of the oldest warriors among the immortals, a man with the body of a thirty-year-old and the soul of the Ancients.
The scientist, whose name was Ully, replaced the vial and leaned back in his chair.
"Death dude said it’s not working."
Kris raised an eyebrow and turned to Ully.
"Where did we find her?"
"She was referred by another immortal, Giovanni," Ully replied.
"Then what’s the problem?"
"It’s not working," Gabriel said.
"Ully, check the info we got from her," Kris ordered.
The scientist hopped up with a cheerful salute. Kris waited until the door closed.
"You should’ve killed her, Gabe," he said with a frown.
"Sasha wants her as much as Toby."
"Sasha wants a human?"
"Yeah. She's an immortal mate, a special one."
Gabriel knew the impact of his simple words just as he knew the impact of his appearance. Kris’s normally iced features clouded, his violet eyes going green as he thought.
"How special?" Kris asked, the worry lines on his forehead deepening.
"Special enough she's immune to immortal magic."
"That doesn’t make sense," Kris said, and leaned forward. "Unless you're saying…"
Kris looked at him hard.
"Are you saying she's an Ancient's mate?"
Gabriel shrugged. Neither Kris nor Sasha was capable of mercy or empathy. For that sake, neither was he. But an immortal's mate was off hands. An Ancient's mate had never before been found. As the leader of the Council That Was Seven, Kris would be obligated to take the first Ancient mate.
Kris's features clouded, and Gabriel suspected it was because Kris had been with his current lover, Jade, for hundreds of years.
"This isn't good," Kris voiced. "Keep an eye on her and stay my execution order for now. Ully might figure something else out."
"The Council meets in two days," Gabriel reminded him.
"Trust me, I can think of nothing else. Sasha’s planning something big."
"End of the world."
"Your sense of humor couldn’t be worse timed, Gabe."
"You’ll get to see my place finally."
Kris shook his head, his look of disapproval mixed with amusement. Gabriel liked Kris as much as he’d ever liked anyone despite the bad blood between Kris and his half-brother, Rhyn. They were different men with different purposes, yet both honorable to the core.
"You still think you can leave Death when you want?" Kris challenged.
"I’m a guest."
"No such thing."
"I’m an exception. She took me in as a favor to my father and will release me, if I ever wanted it."
Death had her pick of badasses from every generation of man and creature, and she wooed every one with the promise of endless riches and the ability to leave when they chose. His circumstances were different, and they both knew it.
Kris slid two rare green life crystals across the table, the common form of payment for an assassination not ordered by Death herself.
"Two for the girl watching Toby, in case you're right, and someone else grabs her," he said. "Your choice of death for her."
Gabriel took the crystals with a nod. Kris left, and Gabriel closed his eyes, crossing into the shadow world before emerging on the street outside the woman’s apartment building. He watched the people pass as he had every generation of man. He sank into the shadows, at home in the darkness, watching. Always watching. Never a part of the world around him.
Some things never changed, like the blue sky, the sun orb, the grass and oceans. They were constants in a world where humans and their inventions passed through the world, less significant than an exhaled breath. He spent most of his time anymore in the shadow world, except when forced out by Death or called out by someone who wanted to buy an assassination. In the darkness, he was comfortable. In the darkness, he was alone.
In the darkness, he wasn’t reminded of an ache he’d killed long ago, that which reminded him he once knew what it was to feel the warmth of the sun on his human skin.
He took up his position outside of Katie's apartment building to protect Rhyn's mate despite his promise to Death not to break any more Immortal Codes.
Katie poured more whiskey into her cocoa. She hadn’t been able to shake the cold she felt and was dressed in layers despite the thermostat being set to eighty. Restless, she took her cocoa into the darkened living room and looked out the window, expecting to see Gabriel lurking across the street. He was there.
"I’m a four-hundred-thousand-year-old angel. I’m a baby in my world. More marshmallows!"
Just when she thought things were weird enough, Toby had started to talk to her. She refused to send him to school or to go to work, determined to figure out what insanity was going on under her roof. Toby’s eyes glowed as small marshmallo
ws tumbled into his cup. He held out his hands. She ignored them and placed the cup on the table before him, then set down her own.
"You’re a four-hundred-thousand-year-old baby," she repeated. "Then you’re not my kid."
"I am!" he replied. "I have to have a human mother."
"You get a new one every eighty years or something?"
"I’m kinda reborn every once in awhile to a new mom."
"And the death dealer is…what?" She asked and pinched her arm. She was still awake.
"He’s Death’s hit man."
"Of course, why not." She poured more whiskey into her cocoa. Alcohol had replaced Hannah in her life when she left.
Toby chewed on the crackers she’d placed before him, crumbs and chunks going all over his pj’s. He didn’t look like a four-hundred-thousand-year-old angel trapped in a five-year-old’s body.
"His name is Gabriel. He’s way older than me. I see him every few dozen years, usually when he’s coming to kill my mama. He’s cool."
She gripped her head.
"Gabriel, fairies!" Toby exclaimed.
She turned and gasped, heart leaping to see the death dealer lingering like the shadow he was in the middle of her living room. His eyes glowed darker than night, two black holes in his otherwise indistinguishable face. She groped for the nearest light and flipped it on, unsettled by the man even in the warm lamplight.
"Toby says you’re going to kill me," she said, heart hammering.
"Not yet."
"Not yet?" she echoed. "You have a date in mind you’d like to share?"
"No."
"Soon, not soon?"
"No," he said.
"Look, I get that no one survives life, but I’d like to know when you plan on taking me out so I can plan a few things, say farewell to my sister, maybe prepay for my burial!" she demanded, hearing the hysterics enter her voice.
"There won’t be a body to bury."
Her mouth dropped open.
"Gabriel takes people to the underworld, body and all," Toby explained as he grasped the large man’s gloved hand. "Fairies!"
The death dealer went obediently to the kitchen. Katie’s hands shook. She followed them and set her cocoa down on the counter, grabbing the whiskey and retreating with the intent of drinking herself to sleep. Gabriel’s hand snaked out as she passed, and he yanked the bottle neatly from her hand. She snatched at it, and he pushed her away.
"Immortal Code," he stated.
Keeping her away with one hand, he dumped its contents into the sink. She watched, and then stalked out, furious and frustrated. After he destroyed all her drugs, she’d suspected he’d react this way and had hidden another bottle in her bedroom.
She slammed her door and rested her head against it, wondering how long this would continue before her head exploded. Or when Gabriel the death dealer killed her. She withdrew the final bottle of whiskey from beneath the bed. It was wrenched away from her, and she grated her teeth.
"No," Gabriel said. He held up the bottle and retreated to the bathroom.
She jerked her door open and grabbed her coat. She didn’t care if she left a five-year-old kid home alone, not when he was a four-hundred-thousand-year-old angel! He had someone better than an army watching him. He had death’s personal assistant.
She walked out onto the sidewalk, shivering in the cold.
I usually only see him when he comes to kill my mama.
The words echoed in her head, and she walked blindly for several moments, until the cold burning her lungs made her stop. She’d been seen by a doctor who’d been dead twenty years, was babysitting a four-hundred-thousand-year-old angel, and the grim reaper spent the night on her couch.
Things really couldn’t get much stranger.
"Ms. Young, I need a blood sample."
The man who spoke stood behind her. He was tall with glasses, a brunet ponytail, and a goofy grin. His lab coat was all the overcoat he wore, and he hopped in place beside a beat-up VW Bug whose engine coughed as if it were on its last leg.
"Let me guess, you work for a dead doctor," she said, crossing her arms.
"Oh, no!" he said with a laugh. "Technically, I am a dead doctor."
"Unbelievable."
"No, no, it’s a really good story. I got to meet Death and everything."
She turned on her heel and walked.
"Please, Katie!" he begged. "No girls ever visit my lab, and Kris rarely lets me leave. Just one pinprick."
"You know Ted Bundy drove a VW Bug, right?" she challenged.
He opened the passenger door with a hopeful smile. She climbed in wordlessly, not surprised to find it cold. The vents rattled without producing heat.
"It’s not far," he said with a cheerful smile despite his shaking body. "I’m Ully."
True to his word, they drove less than two blocks before he entered a public parking garage and drove to the bottommost floor and parked in a dark corner with yellow no-parking lines. He turned off the car and touched the garage door opener on the sunshade above him, whistling as he waited. She jerked as the ground lurched below them, lowering them slowly through the thick cement layers into a tunnel wide enough for a dump truck.
He started the car again and drove through a series of tunnels and intersections, a virtual underground street grid, before arriving at a large garage filled with gleaming cars.
She trailed him to an elevator that took them even further underground. Her headache was returning, her heart beating so fast she knew she’d pass out if she didn’t calm down. Her deep breaths drew Ully’s dark eyes.
He smiled in encouragement and led her off the elevator and through a series of cheerfully lit hallways with pictures on the walls and wood floors. He swiped a badge to enter what she imagined was the Mecca of all science labs, with rows of stainless steel, machines, computers, and glass. He parked himself at a computer, and she perched on a stool beside him.
"What is all this?" she breathed.
The air was cool and clear, as crisp as a fall day.
"Only the best lab ever!"
His enthusiasm for the underground world only made her feel more nauseous. He took her hand and pricked her finger. The pain and the sight of her blood made her vision dim. She fell into the in-between place, only vaguely aware of his panicked response as she sagged against him or of the muscular form that lifted her from the floor and carried her away.
The pungent smelling salts snapped her out of the in-between place. She swiped the hand away, blinking to clear her gaze as she stared into a fire. The hearth blazed opposite her position on a plush sofa with buttery leather in a small study with Persian carpets. She thought the man before her old because of his silver until her vision cleared and she saw his face.
His white-silver hair was long and clasped at his neck, his bronzed face and forest-green eyes displaying no emotion. His features were chiseled, the firelight casting harsh shadows across the planes of his face. He was muscular and tall, clothed in dark jeans, a snug grey T-shirt that hugged his biceps and stretched across his chest and back and then sagged at his slender torso and hips, and a round black medallion that fell from his T-shirt as he leaned over her.
"Ully," he growled, turning to face the scientist.
Ully was pale.
Katie pushed herself up, startled by the stickiness on her hand. She looked down and saw the sleeve of her sweater soaked in blood.
"I am so sorry!" Ully gushed, stricken. "You fell, and I tried to catch you, but then you kind of veered to one side and I grabbed your arm but then you--"
"Out."
Ully frowned but obeyed the white-haired man’s command. Katie sat up, wondering why her hand didn’t hurt. It shook, and she was even colder.
"I don’t know what you are, but I couldn’t heal you. You owe Gabriel one," the silver-haired man said. He squatted beside her, wrapping her arm in a clean white towel before he rose and strode to the desk along the far wall. He picked up what looked like a medical file and became as stil
l as the death dealer, as if forgetting her presence completely.
Her eyes skimmed his perfect, buff body before the pain in her hand finally registered. She tugged off her wool coat with some effort. Blood soaked her towel, and she stood.
"Do you have a restroom?"
He jabbed his thumb toward the wall behind him, where she made out the slender nickel doorknob in the space between two shelves of ancient books. He didn’t acknowledge her as she entered the surprisingly large bathroom. She winced and pulled the towel free then turned on the water as hot as she could stand. She stared at herself in the mirror, wondering when she’d started looking like a pound dog. She glanced down to watch the blood stream down the drain then held up her arm.
It was healed, just as he said.
She flipped both hands front and back and looked at the blood-soaked towel and the sleeve of her sweater. Her hands both worked. With a sigh, she cleaned up the area as well as she could and pulled off the sweater, as it was warm enough in the study with her T-shirt.
She looked like shit. There were dark circles beneath her light eyes, her hair was in a half-assed lumpy ponytail, and her face was so pale and drawn, she looked ill.
Was this what crazy looked like? She breathed out another sigh and righted her ponytail, then splashed water on her face. Emerging from the bathroom, she was confronted by a pacing Ully.
"I, uh, dropped your blood sample," he said with a glance at the figure with his back toward them both. "Could I get another?"
She handed him the towel. He hesitated then took it and left. The silver-haired man made no move at all.
"I need--" she said finally.
"Have a seat."
His order was calm, the slight accent in his voice foreign. She stared at the back of his head, a chill running through her. Her move toward the fire was reflected in a small mirror behind the desk in front of which he stood.
He had no reflection.
She squeezed her eyes closed and breathed deeply, swaying. His touch made her jerk away and her eyes snap open. She stared at him, backing out of his reach until the back of her knees hit a chair and she dropped into it.
His eyes had changed color to a deep violet-blue, a beautiful shade of tanzanite. She felt cold again on the inside and shivered. He looked away finally and returned to his desk.
