The Reaper's Kiss
Page 5
I couldn’t figure Brent out. Sort of like if Prince Charming saw Cinderella in sweats, pimply-faced, and covered in ice cream stains, and he still took her to the ball. What did he see in me that screamed “rebel”?
“Did you chase me down this morning because you want to start a rebellion?” I said, half joking, half serious.
“I chased you because you dropped your phone. That you’re a potential dissident Master Scrivener makes you the full package.”
“You’re trying to flatter your way into my bed,” I said, after the kind of silence that makes your skin want to crawl off your bones and make for the nearest exit.
“You make flattery sound like it’s a bad thing.”
“Goal!” roared the hockey fans in the pub, distracting me from the dark pools of untamed intent in Brent’s eyes. I spotted a small television perched on the bar top, encircled by humans.
“Good evening, Stygians,” a familiar voice crooned, heard only by Brent and me. Our low-frequency station, which humans couldn’t perceive, replaced the clash of hockey players dashing for the puck with a picture of Head Reaper Marin on the TV screen.
His pale skin was a perfect complement for his textbook strong features and bald head, but left him looking washed out in his black turtleneck. It was his obsidian eyes, devoid of irises, that disturbed me, as if he could see through the television and into my soul.
“I’m disappointed to report that a hospital fire in Phoenix, Arizona, did not reap Styx its due share of souls today,” Marin intoned. “Human emergency personnel retained all lives. I do not like reminding you that our job is to deliver souls to the Afterlife. Slipups like this will not be taken kindly.”
I worked the top layer of varnish on the table with my nails. Marin wasn’t directly chiding me, but I couldn’t help but feel his threat score through the noise to latch onto my conscious and eat it raw.
“In other news,” he continued, “my Watchmen have reported that the rebel blog, HermesHarbinger.com is being run by a turncoat in the northeast of North America, possibly the Province of Québec. They are tracking down the exact location as I speak. I ask that you be on guard for anyone technologically savvy, as they—”
Brent turned back to me, annoyance cut into his brow. “Overheard someone saying the Montreal Canadiens are playing the Predators. Must be the game we’re missing.”
I already knew. I had religiously watched the NHL as soon as I had rigged my home television to pick up on anything between 54 and 806 megahertz—the human stations. I called the clever electronic box the Interceptor. Most Stygian radios and televisions only picked up Marin’s messages.
I couldn’t say what level of Offense hotwiring a television into my homemade Interceptor was, but it surely wasn’t execution-worthy. Marin might’ve had me living in fear, but he would not separate this Québecker from her hockey.
Suppose Brent and I had more in common than I had thought: we both needed our fixes of sweaty men on ice skates body-checking each other over a six-ounce piece of rubber. Of course, I was certain he didn’t find it quite as deliciously sexy.
If he did, we’d have a lot more to talk about.
“Betcha the Canadiens will win,” I taunted.
“I’ll tolerate a win so long as I don’t have to listen to Marin’s bullshit.”
“Très bien, Monsieur Hume.”
His sly smile seemed to enjoy the sauciness of my French inflections. “Does that mean I get to go home with you tonight?” Those blue eyes twinkled gold.
I ran my fingertip along the curve of his beer glass. “Not a chance.”
Chapter Five
“Our alliance can elicit change. Our deliverance will come with only a whisper into the void.”
—HermesHarbinger.com, 10:25 am ET Thursday, 13 April.
13 April
“Sorry I’m late,” I said to Gerard after I set my coffee and backpack on my workstation. “Didn’t sleep well after what happened yesterday.”
“With Moose?”
“Eve.” Mostly Eve.
“Heard on the news this morning that another Stygian was sent to Erebus,” Gerard droned, bored, when ordinarily the mention of another Stygian down would inspire regret. “Seems like there’s one every day.”
“We should start a pool,” I said, cynically. “By Christmas more than half of Styx will be in Erebus.”
From my side of the studio, I watched Gerard leaning back, studying his artwork. My lifelong mentor and boss was the only other Scrivener I had met, and he offered minimal information about himself when I pried. Whatever secrets he kept, he locked them behind an iron wall—one that even I couldn’t burn through.
He’d been born shortly after the Scrivener Purge, and he was careful to wear that as a badge of pride for the entirety of his life. All I knew was that his Deathmarks were pinup models. Betty Paige, Jayne Mansfield, Betty Boop—lethal beauties to some ill-fated souls.
With a tired but tense sigh, I sat down at my drawing table and fished my toolbox out of my backpack. The black plastic box glistened in the shop’s lights. A flick of the latches and the lid popped open. Packed safely against a bedding of silver foam was the rotary tattoo machine I had built specifically for my skullwork. Today I didn’t like the way it looked at me, a reminder of what damage we had done together.
As I went about laying my tools out in a precise order—from left to right went the gun, needle, eye loupe—I pictured the sugar skull I left on Eve’s bicep yesterday. When would it take her life? Did she have hours or weeks left?
Eve, Eve, Eve.
Her fate—and what part I played in her demise—would haunt me.
I would die with it burned into my conscience.
Once everything was aligned and awaiting sterilization, I pulled my brunette dreads into a chignon and then took the first sip of the coffee of the day.
“Got any Deathmarks on the books?” I asked my boss.
“None that I know of.” His tone was bright.
“My last client is getting her first…and last tattoo,” I said. “I think she’s a model.”
Gerard’s soft gaze rose from his drawing. “A Playboy model?”
“If she is, she probably doesn’t dig the old silent type who has ‘Hard Cock’ inked across his knuckles.” I raised the eye loupe toward the light to check the needle for contamination.
Gerard observed the obscene words on his tattooed knuckles. “You never know, Ollie. Some women might call me dark and mysterious.”
The bell over the shop’s door jangled and in strutted Chad the Eidolon in yesterday’s attire, hair tousled and sporting a five o’clock shadow. He gave me a loathsome wink, nodded to Gerard, and quietly sat in the back corner, where he had spent yesterday afternoon.
“Everything should’ve been cleared up with headquarters,” Gerard said to Chad. “Why are you back?”
Chad’s brownish-yellow teeth almost glistened when he smirked. “My job is to find suspicious activity.”
I wanted to say there was nothing for him to see, but I knew better. What happened to Moose was not a common occurrence. Chad the Eidolon had been sent by Marin to force me to slip up and then—Bam!—I would be the next to be made an example of to any Scriveners and Reapers who dared to challenge his rigid authority.
My inner grumbling about Head Reaper Marin’s reign of terror was cut off by a whirl of cool air that rustled Gerard’s artwork and almost knocked my coffee over. Behind the counter stood a man in a black canvas jacket pulled tight over a muscular frame. From Eve’s iPhone pictures, I knew exactly who this blond was.
“Remy.” I rocketed out of my chair, confused at seeing Eve’s latest boyfriend in person for the first time without Eve by his side. Had he come to tell me Eve was already gone?
“Ollie.” His voice was remarkably soft compared to his mass.
The weight of Chad’s hard gaze briefly withdrew my attention from Eve’s beau. Once I connected with the Eidolon, the anxiety slinking upwards from my toes intensified.
/> “How is Eve?” Introductions were not as important as a status update.
“That’s why I’m here actually.” Remy tucked his hands into his pockets.
Nervous tension spread across my chest. “Is she okay?”
“Her tattoo is infected. She asked me to come by and see if you have more of that ointment you gave her.”
Remy’s words echoed in my vacant head.
Infected tattoo.
Fresh wounds like tattoos could easily get infected, for a myriad of reasons. I had a good idea, though, that this infection was not bacterial, but supernatural. Death was already closing in on her, and likely before she’d have her chance to reconnect with her estranged mother.
“Of course.” My voice wavered. I pawed under the counter for the box filled with tins of ointment meant to help in the healing process. The box crashed to the floor, spilling the containers, before I realized that my hands were covered in sweat. Gerard and I jokingly called the herbal ointment Death Goo because the treatment mattered not, when death would come in weeks or even days.
Death Goo.
I covered the pewter lotus pendant I wore with one hand as I released an anxious grunt.
“Ollie, you need some help.” Gerard was at my side. Having worked with him since I was a teenager, I knew his words held a deeper understanding of my grief.
I dove to the floor and hurriedly shoved the tins back in the box.
Gerard handed Remy the ointment. “That should heal her tattoo.”
Gerard rolled his chair alongside me as I drove the needle of the tattoo machine along the last few passes of the young model’s back. As was customary, he was playing the attentive mentor, but there was an ulterior motive. Chad was outside taking a rare cigarette break.
“Don’t forget, he’s waiting for you to show signs of Master work,” Gerard whispered just over the buzz of my tattoo machine, so as to keep my client from hearing.
There was that word again—Master. Gerard had never actually said that before. Seemed ill fitting. Or maybe I just wasn’t willing to accept it. Whichever it was, Chad the Eidolon wouldn’t see anything worthwhile unless it was the sole of my shoe coming at his face.
But there was a very real truth to consider. The Purge. Master Scriveners. And if I was one of them, what would that mean for me?
Erebus?
The tattoo machine nearly slipped from my fingertips. I removed my foot from the pedal, killing the power. My client couldn’t see the look of terror in my eyes. Gerard did, though.
“Do everything you can to look average,” Gerard said when the door swung open and a cloud of tobacco smoke burned my nostrils. Gerard grudgingly rolled back across the shop to his station, giving Chad a sidelong glance.
“You know, Dominique,” I said to my client as I tried to shake off Gerard’s warning, “if I ever get ink, I’d definitely get a skull like this one.”
“Merci, Olivia.” That was the best she could muster over the pain. Poor thing.
Like Gerard, I gave Chad a look that would’ve turned the cheeriest person cold. The Eidolon didn’t appear to care, however. There was not much I could do to provoke him. I promised myself that I would not let him see anything worth reporting to the Head Reaper and, more importantly, I would not let him see my uncontrollable skills.
For the remainder of my shift at Salon de Tatuoage, I did what I had always done, keeping my power reined in. The effort was not met without a challenge. Just seeing Chad sitting in the corner, watching every move I made, charged my rage, which in turn made my hands hotter than usual. I kept myself under control as Gerard had advised, by frequently running my hands under cold water, breathing with intention, and reminding myself to stay calm.
Trouble was, I wouldn’t be able to do it forever.
By closing hour, I was exhausted, far more than any other night. Yawning led to heavy eyes. Fatigue swept over me, begging me to curl up just about anywhere for a nap.
I slipped quietly into the crisp night, tightening the scarf around my neck. The commute was one mile. Not far, not close. By eleven, there were few people out and about. Bars and clubs did not populate our neck of Québec City. I never feared my nighttime walks home, and they were a chance to ruminate over a day’s work.
But something about this commute did not feel normal.
There were eyes on me.
Eidolon eyes, if my intuition was trustworthy.
Gerard had told me Chad would wait for me to show signs of blossoming skills and then he’d pounce.
A glance over my shoulder showed no one there. Still, I slowed my pace and checked the windows of the shops that I passed, looking for anyone who might be following. Papa and Mama had taught me to be street smart. For a Stygian, the rules of nighttime safety were different. A human couldn’t do much damage to someone like me. Another Stygian, especially an Eidolon, could.
Then again—I looked at my hands—maybe I could do some damage, too.
“Scrivie,” whistled an unwelcomingly familiar voice.
Tucking my hands, which were cold as ice, into my jacket pockets, I turned and faced the yellow teeth and sneer of my pursuer. And as anyone would upon seeing such a grim face, I startled.
“You were holding back today,” Chad said.
“I’m off duty. You don’t need to follow me home,” I said with confidence.
“A Stygian is never off duty.” His cigarette breath, something even the crisp air could not diffuse, offended my senses.
“Scriveners work shifts, and my shift is over.” The words came out of my mouth, but I was sure they weren’t mine. Speaking back to an Eidolon—who as a group were third in command of all Stygians—was not the wisest of responses. An obedient “yes, monsieur” would’ve been far more diplomatic. Yet even when I knew what I should do, my mouth flapped on anyway. “Why don’t you keep working and let me go home in peace?”
It was stupid of me.
Very, very stupid.
Chad’s eyes bled into angry rubies, the uniquely demonic stare of an Eidolon. This show of dominance and rage did not thwart me, and it occurred only in passing that the reason I was not afraid was fairly simple—I was numb. Eve, my best friend, wore my Deathmark. Her finite time was quickly ticking away. Whatever Chad could do to me was not as menacing as what my own mind was doing.
I broke from our standoff, glided around him on the walkway, and made for my apartment. As I rushed away from him, he sniggered as if to say he had let me off easy tonight, but I’d pay for my insubordination eventually.
Chapter Six
“Come, come, Godfather Death. Not too soon but not too late. Come, come, Godfather Death, Drown all evil in the river of hate.”
—Styx Nursery Rhyme, circa 1922
Dudley, my thirty-pound black and white mutt that I rescued from the snow-covered streets of Québec City nearly five years ago, dove into his midnight dinner as if it was the greatest thing he had ever experienced. I was certain that couldn’t be true, after the delight he showed when he peed on his favorite mailbox in front of my apartment building five minutes ago. Then again, dogs seemed to think everything was great—food, toys, a good pat on the head.
As for me, there was too much on my mind to even enjoy Dudley’s happiness.
Shame. Regret. Frustration. Suspicion.
The consolation was that I wasn’t on guard inside the safety of my home. I didn’t have to worry about Chad watching over my shoulder, waiting to trip me up. Not a worry of either of Marin or Chad destroying my soul. I had done nothing wrong, at least nothing criminal.
The tradeoff didn’t bring relief.
On my perch on my kitchen counter, I kept my head buried in Reaper Monthly as I waited for Dudley to finish his meal. Staring back from the glossy magazine was Head Reaper Marin in his usual black attire. He stood in front of three Reapers charged with a Level Ten Offense for allowing a suicide bomber and his victims to survive an attack last month. The humans lived when Death had ordered them to die.
My demise could end up in the next Reaper Monthly if I wasn’t careful.
Dudley took the last bite of his kibble and quickly began nosing the metal bowl across the linoleum floor for remnants of flavor he might have missed. The squeak of metal against plastic was unpleasant, but I would not stop him from getting the most out of his dinner. Hades knew I had taken enough from others today.
As the screeching intensified—because Dudley left nothing for scavengers, including himself—a dark mass moved behind him. I sat up, rail straight.
My apartment was playing optical illusions on me. Home sweet home was one of the disregarded buildings in a forgotten part of Québec, with nauseating floral wallpaper from the 1920’s, yellowed water stains in the ceilings, creaky floors, and a constant chill even in July. Shadows were par for the course.
Dudley whined.
I tossed Reaper Monthly aside. It landed cover up, pages crumpled against the countertop. I leaped off the counter. When my feet landed with a soft thud on the peeling linoleum, I saw the dark mass again. Movement. A hazy outline of a person making for my bedroom.
I burst inside the room and flicked on the light, but there was nothing in the bedroom, not a rat or a bug or a ghost. My overactive mind loved to play tricks on my sensibilities. An odd noise was definitely a burglar. A mysterious shadow was a ghost. Straddling the worlds of the living and the dead made it difficult to dismiss mysteries as benign.
Dudley stopped at my side. His black nose twitched as he sniffed the air. A spine of raised fur ran down the length of his shoulders and back. He, too, sensed something peculiar.
“You saw it, too, didn’t you, Duds?”
My furry companion’s awareness was the validation I needed to put the chain lock on my front door, turn on every light in my apartment, and bury myself under my bed covers. Daybreak couldn’t come soon enough.