Reaper (Lightbringer)

by K. D. McEntire

  What choice did he have? Piotr scowled, but took the proffered hand. “Yes. Friend.”

  Parking the car and stepping into the parking garage left Wendy feeling vulnerable and edgy. Though she'd been here only a few hours earlier, the shadows of the garage seemed deeper, darker than before, and the muted shuffle of her boots echoed back strangely from the concrete pillars. It was silly, but Wendy hesitated at the edges of the last line of cars, unsure about turning the blind corner.

  “Don't be an idiot,” she muttered, forcing herself to move past the minivan on the end and step quickly toward the elevators. “No one is there.”

  The elevator arrow lit up as Wendy approached; the elevator was coming from the basement. When the doors dinged open, Wendy stopped cold in her tracks.

  The elevator was filled with Walkers.

  Holy crap, what do I do?! Wendy knew she could step into the Never, become the Lightbringer, and probably deal with the half dozen or so Walkers fairly easily…if she'd had the benefit of surprise.

  But these Walkers were different, she could tell at a glance. Several of them had their hoods pushed nearly back, exposing repaired flesh crosshatched with strange symbols, weird text. These ghosts were remnants of the White Lady's Walker army, and Wendy knew better than to tangle with so many of those at once.

  Walkers, especially the ones who'd worked for her mother, were well used to handling Wendy by now. They knew how to combine their attacks, how to swarm and outnumber her, and most importantly, they had quickly learned that Wendy was weakest when dropping her physical body for the Lightbringer's spiritual shape. If they'd been normal Walkers, untouched by her mother, Wendy might have chanced a surprise attack—but these were trained Walkers. It was too risky. They'd be on her in an instant.

  Heartbeat tripling, Wendy slowly began walking again, forcing each foot to move in front of the other. The main stairs were behind her, she could double back and take them, but the elevator was the fastest way to the main floor and other living humans. She was also afraid that doubling back might rouse their suspicions.

  Then she spotted the fire stairs. Excellent!

  Passing the elevator at a brisk walk, Wendy chewed her lip and tried to sort out what to do next. Someone must have called for the elevator on a higher floor—it was going up again now, and the Walkers would still be on it when she hit the main floor. What were they doing here, and why were so many of them huddled in one group?

  As much as she hated to admit it, Wendy knew that she had to find out. Spying on them in the living lands wouldn't be easy—it was late, and Wendy obviously didn't work in the hospital. She'd stick out, but the sight of so many Walkers in one place, especially Walkers her mother had trained, was too much. She had to follow them.

  Wendy was halfway up the stairs when she felt the wave of cold eddying around her shins. Slowing at the turn of the staircase, Wendy glanced down and had to bite her tongue to keep from cursing aloud.

  The Walkers had left the elevator and were following her.

  What is going on here? Wendy wondered and then had to remind herself that to the Walkers, she was just some human. No one special. Right?

  Breathing shallowly, forcing herself to stay calm and keep walking up the stairs, albeit now at a much slower pace, Wendy inwardly chanted, Don't panic. They have no idea who I am. I haven't used the Light at all since the showdown with the White Lady; if I don't draw attention to myself, it's no big deal, right? I can do this.

  Her skin was clammy at her palms and temples; Wendy felt a bead of sweat slip between her shoulder blades and trickle down her back as she glanced around the narrow stairwell. No door except up at the top of the stairs, and that one was for Employees Only. She still had two flights to go before she'd reach the lobby. Plenty of time for the Walkers to catch up and overwhelm her if they wanted to.

  Up close, even separated by the thin veil of life from death, Wendy could smell the rank stink of the Walkers surround her like a fog. The stairwell doors closed, shutting her in. The Walkers rustled around her, their cold pressing against her cheeks and the back of her neck. They towered over her, filling the narrow passage to full with their rotten presence. The chill made her ribs ache.

  Screw this, Wendy berated herself, shivering. What are you, the Lightbringer or some sort of wimp?! This is ridiculous! You know what you have to do.

  She wasn't a novice at taking out the dead; she could gut all of them before they even had a chance to attack, right?

  Right. Glad to have made that decision, Wendy prepared to loosen her hold on the Light. But, just before she could blaze into glory, a memory of her mother's brusque, sharp voice made her pause…

  Pay attention to your surroundings, Wendy. We live in the land of the living and of the dead—you must never, ever forget that. Always, always, WATCH YOUR BACK.

  Crap. Wendy took a deep breath and glanced up at the corner of the stairwell—stupid, stupid, stupid, she thought. Sure enough, there it was: a security camera, blinking red. Even if she wanted to, Wendy couldn't change into the Lightbringer now.

  She could just imagine what it would look like for the security guard on duty. A teenage girl takes the fire stairs, stops halfway up, vanishes on camera, and then reappears on the main floor. Even if Wendy were so lucky that the guard wasn't watching right then, her vanishing act would still be caught on camera, most likely recorded and stored on some distant backup hard drive for who knew how long. Wendy bit her lip to keep from groaning aloud; she had well and truly trapped herself.

  Realizing that she could do nothing for the moment, Wendy fought to keep her gorge down by breathing shallowly through her mouth and taking the steps two at a time now, hurrying as quickly as she could up the stairs.

  Wendy hadn't flinched much when the raccoon blood had splattered her from the knees down, and had hardly winced when Jon's dinner joined the mess, but being here, surrounded by the smell of the Walkers’ necrotic tissue and mealy, maggoty meat underlaid with a spicy cinnamon-rust-salt scent was almost too much. Wendy felt the burn of acid work its slow way up her esophagus. She frantically flicked a glance down the stairs, marveling as the Walkers rattled after her, silently begging for the door to the main floor to be next.

  Thankfully, it was.

  Holding her breath as casually as she could, Wendy shoved the door to the lobby as hard as she could.

  It wouldn't budge.

  Wendy stopped. The Walkers had congregated on the landing below. She could feel their cold rising up, filling the narrow walkway, icing over the guardrails.

  Forcing herself to stay calm, Wendy shoved the door again and this time, thankfully, it opened with a loud creak.

  Pretending everything was normal, Wendy entered the lobby and moved aside, adjusting her purse as if it were the most normal, casual thing to do in the middle of the night in a hospital entryway. Then, once she was several feet away, Wendy breathed in again, blessing the sweet, bleach-and-chemical tang of the air. Anything was better than the flat, gagging rot of the stairwell.

  The guard desk was empty, Wendy realized. The gift shop was dark.

  She was alone with over half a dozen Walkers.

  A slow scratch of sound sent a shiver up Wendy's spine. She didn't turn to see what the noise was—she didn't have to. The smell preceded them. The Walkers had surrounded her once again.

  It was colder now, Wendy realized. Much more intensely chilled than the stairs had been. Wendy's breath fogged in front of her, snot dripped out her left nostril. Wendy swiped at her face and found that she was shivering violently, teeth beginning to chatter.

  Wendy looked up at the ceiling. A black bowl hung directly in the middle of the lobby, a thin red light shining within; more frickin’ cameras, probably there to catch anyone shoplifting from the gift store or the pharmacy next door.

  Great, just great. Wendy was tempted to flip off the camera but the Walkers were so close now and the chill pressed the very air from her lungs. Breathing too deeply caused jagged slivers
of pain to grip Wendy's chest, every inhalation scraping her throat raw. Ducking her head, Wendy was startled to realize that where the Walkers stepped, small sheets of ice crackled along the ground.

  Things had rapidly spiraled from bad to worse—the half-dozen Walkers from the elevator were joined by more; four others were waiting in the shadows of the gift shop doorway, their cloaks dragging the floor, their shambling gait almost synchronous as they drifted toward Wendy.

  The cold was so intense now, so overwhelming, that Wendy felt her body begin to sag from the weight of the chill. Moving her head, even slightly, took immense effort. Keeping her eyes open was becoming a chore.

  Stop being weak! Her mother's voice cracked across her mind like a slap, rousing Wendy from the cold-induced fugue. Mistake after mistake after mistake; you're dying! Get it together, cover your back! Wake up! Wake up, Wendy, wake up!

  Futilely, Wendy decided that her mother's voice was right. Cameras or not, if she was going down, she was going down with a fight. A dozen to one or not, she had to do something. Pushing aside the sharp voice hissing orders, Wendy reached for the cords of will containing the Light within, but she'd waited too long.

  The insidious cold had wormed too deeply inside. Her will was slow, drowsy, her grasp on her Light weak. There was a sniff at her neck.

  Another.

  Then the Walkers were on her; spectral, flaking hands plucking at her hair, thick yellow nails digging at Wendy's elbows, the stench all around gagging her as skeletal fingers raked up and down her body, pinching, pulling, twisting. Numbed by the cold, Wendy was so frozen that she was having trouble recognizing that the pack was trying to pull her apart piece by piece.

  I'm going to go out like Mom did, Wendy realized dimly, in some far-off protected place deep in her mind. The Lost ripped her apart. The Walkers are going to do the same thing to me.

  “Reaper,” hissed the closest Walker, running a blackened tongue up Wendy's jaw and into her ear. “This prey tastes of Reaper!”

  The other Walkers stilled for a split second, glancing at one another and shivering like dogs on point.

  “Reaper?” asked another, brackish black-brown drool dripping over its chin and soaking the ragged front of its cloak. “Real Reaper flesh?”

  “Move!” ordered a third, shoving the licking-Walker aside. This one was a particularly nasty-looking grey-clad woman with only half a face, the rest of her flesh soapified and sagging off her cheekbones, the remains of her left eyelid dropping over her bloodshot eye. This lady Walker pushed close, sniffed, and then chuckled. “Reaper,” she confirmed. “Mine. The one I've been sent for.”

  At this declaration, Wendy began struggling in earnest. The fugue wasn't completely gone, but her panic was serving to push it back, to give her energy and a little hidden strength. Wendy reached for the closest Walker to her left—her Light surged just a bit, hardly more than a flicker—and grabbed it by the chin.

  The Walker hissed in pain, scrabbling at her hands and twisting Wendy's wrist free. A flap of skin came off in her hand, writhing with teeny white and black maggots, as Wendy stumbled back a step. The Walker, growling and spitting, clutched its face and cursed.

  The closest Walkers dug their hands into her shoulders, mumbling in a slow, dark language, and Wendy sagged again as the overwhelming cold poured over her chest in a sheet, an intense wave of numbness that bullied every nerve into instant submission, leaving only her mind intact. Wendy lolled in their grip.

  “No!” hissed the licking-Walker, pushing the Lady Walker back a step. “Ours! All ours!”

  The Lady Walker rolled her good eye and straightened, grabbing the licking-Walker by his face. “Mine,” she insisted and, reaching forward quite casually, snapped his neck. Then she looked at the others, pointedly ignoring the writhing Walker on the floor as he struggled to set his flopping head straight on his abused neck. “Questions?”

  “Orders?” hissed the closest Walker.

  “Hold her.”

  They hauled Wendy to her feet and the Lady Walker jabbed her hands straight out, skeletal fingers jamming into Wendy's chest. The sensation was a terrifyingly deep, tidal tug from her very core.

  Nauseated by the sensation of a hand poking around in her innards, Wendy was stunned to realize that she could actually feel each individual finger scrape along her ribs, the icy press of the woman's hand as it brushed her heart and dug deeper in, seeking…something. Her Light, maybe? The cold was nothing in the face of this pain. Despite the numbing chill of the Walkers holding her down, nerves no longer deadened from cold, Wendy arched back, whimpering, and the other Walkers pressed in, forcing her to her knees.

  “Found you,” the female Walker whispered. “Looked and looked and here you are, where she said you'd be. At last. At long last.” She squeezed an organ—a loop of intestine, perhaps?—and Wendy yelped in pain.

  Piotr might never know what had happened to her, Wendy realized dimly. Or Eddie, if he ever woke, or her siblings. They'd think she'd just collapsed again. They would bundle her up and lay her in the same wing her mother had lain in until the day she'd died.

  “Get you…for this…” Wendy forced out.

  “Shhh,” the Lady Walker replied, leaning forward so her slaggy forehead pressed against Wendy's. “Sleep, Reaper. Sleep and die for me. Like you must.”

  Overwhelmed, Wendy still tried to push back, attempting to twist away so the female Walker wouldn't be wrist deep in her chest, but the Walker moved with her. She'd found the Light, Wendy realized. Her hand grasped Wendy's core with a painful pinch, a squeeze…

  …and the world was filled with unexpected Light.

  The Walkers around her hissed, the cold fading with startling suddenness as they turned as one toward the new source of Light. Snarling, the female Walker yanked her hands free.

  “I have your taste now,” she growled in Wendy's ear, her decrepit breath scudding across Wendy's face in a foul puff of air. “Don't sleep!”

  Then she was gone—and with her, the pain. Lightheaded and nauseous, Wendy turned toward the Light, trying to make out the shape of the woman beneath the glare.

  “Mom?” Wendy whispered as the brilliant figure jammed forward with a spiral of Light, the tendrils of heat splitting the closest Walker neatly in half. The stink of rot was joined with the sickly sweet stench of meat charring and flame-broiling in an instant, the smoke rising in thick grey-black clouds.

  “Hi,” Wendy said to the figure and, now freed of the Walker's intense, numbing grip, flung loose her Light within.

  The Light poured out of her like an explosion of cold-heat-fire-ice, circular pulses of noiseless thunder that pounded into the Walkers around her and broke them apart, shattering their yellow bones, liquefying their mottled, cross-hatched skin, each subsequent burst slicing through them until they were as dust and shattered shards upon the floor.

  The sensation was familiar and horrible and wonderful all at once. This was what it had been like to destroy a room full of ghosts in the basement of the Palace Hotel. This had been what it felt like when the orb of her Light, her soul, her abilities, cracked on the ground and every bit of her was free to expand, to stretch, to obliterate any and all dead around.

  And, just as before, when the Light was done, it collapsed inward and Wendy, staggering, reined it in once more. How could such immense heat remain banked within her? Wendy didn't know. All she knew was that coming back into her body was like balancing en pointe on the edge of the Hobart Building, peering down into the vertiginous void.

  Her stomach lurched.

  Helpless to do otherwise, Wendy turned and retched into a potted plant, clinging to the tall black plastic with everything she had as the waves of nausea hit and hit and hit again until she was shaking and dripping sweat. It seemed that she purged for hours, though it could have only been a minute or two at most, and when she was done Wendy hugged the cool plastic, marveling that she was alive, much less relatively intact.

  A cool, soft hand brushed her
hair back from her temples. The touch was gentle, kind, and another hand offered Wendy a silver flask.

  “Drink up,” Wendy's savior said. “Or at least rinse out your mouth. You don't want your teeth to get all puke-scummy.”

  “What…what is—”

  “Water. Nothing more, I promise.” Strong hands guided Wendy into a sitting position against the wall as Wendy, eyes closed, gratefully glugged the water from the flask.

  “Slow down there, sport,” the voice said, chuckling. “Or you're going to blow chunks all over again.”

  “Sorry,” Wendy said, wiping her mouth and sighing. “I was just…that was…” Struggling for a way to describe how shaky and wrung out she felt, Wendy finally opened her eyes.

  “Um. Hi. Nice hair,” she managed as the girl stood, turning away from Wendy, arms held loosely open and fingers curled, facing the dark hallway from which the Walkers had come.

  Wendy meant the compliment—the girl's hair was electric blue, a chin-length bob that shone under the hospital lights. In fact, the girl looked like she'd just come from a club—no more than eighteen or nineteen at best, she was clad in skintight black jeans, strappy silver high-heel shoes, and a loose scoop-neck blouse over an intricately inked bare back with corset ties up her sides. Silver jangly earrings dangled all the way to her shoulders, glimmering like scales in the light of the lobby.

  Done examining the hallway, the girl turned and, grinning, rested a fist on her hip. Her upper arms and collarbone were looped with an intricate, lacy mesh of Celtic tattoos, several of which Wendy recognized from her own skin.

  This girl was a Lightbringer too.

  “Thanks,” the girl said, shaking her head and offering Wendy a hand up. “You good to stand? Because Mr. Jim Security Dude is due back from his smoke break any minute and we don't exactly paint a good-lookin’ picture right now.”

  “Right,” Wendy agreed, letting the girl pull her to her feet. She wavered, trying to find her balance. “I'm Wendy.”