The Reaper's Kiss

by Abigail Baker

  A tug on my foot woke me from a dream about the Montreal Canadiens skating through the streets of Québec, away from a hockey team of giant Band-Aids. Dudley had a habit of this. After tiring of sharing a pillow, he’d dig at the end of my bed, pulling and shoving my feet into the perfect nest. I returned his fussing with a gentle kick, but didn’t feel his body.

  I peeked over the comforter at the foot of the bed. Dudley wasn’t there. In fact, he wasn’t anywhere nearby. Horror dripped down my shoulders when I realized that the lights, which I had left on, were off, and the ambient light from the street lamps pouring through the windows spread a pale glow across the bedroom.

  “Duds?” I whispered.

  My dog never left the bed, especially not on those cold Québec mornings. He’d stay buried underneath the blankets until he was forced to face the day. That he was gone in the wee hours of the night left me riddled with tremors.

  I slid quietly out of bed. My feet barely registered the icy wood floor.

  “Dudley?”

  I peered around my bedroom door, where I had a direct line of sight to the front entrance to my apartment. My heart slid into my stomach. The chain lock had been undone, and the door hung ajar.

  “Dudley!”

  Someone—or something—had been in my apartment after all.

  But who? And for how long?

  With only the desperate need to scoop Dudley safely into my arms, I ran through my apartment door and into the dark hallway dotted with dim sconces and other apartment doors. The tile floor that led to a flight of stairs felt a million miles long, one that would take hours to clear.

  “Dudley!” I screamed, on the off chance he was hiding in a dark corner, or a neighbor had found him roaming the apartment building in the middle of the night.

  The horror at the invasion of my apartment and fear for Dudley peaked the second I reached the top of the stairway. Staring up at me from the landing, like he was preparing to drag me into the bowels of hell, was Chad. The Eidolon’s blood-red eyes froze me between shock and a full scream.

  A chill washed over me when, silent, he climbed the stairs between us in the time it took me to blink. It wasn’t winter cold, but a weight of despair and resentment and murderous intent that held me paralyzed. My breaths were clouds of visible panic inside this arctic horror.

  “You killed Eve, Scrivie,” he said in a guttural bass. “Her blood is on your hands.” With each word he grew louder, rattling everything—the walls, sconces, doors. The old, dusty paintings jumped with each spiteful syllable.

  I threw my hands over my ears and backed toward my apartment.

  “You are a terrible creature, you are.” Chad followed my measured retreat. “You killed your friend. That deserves some kind of hell, doesn’t it?”

  “Fuck you!” I was scared, but I was also cornered. “You set me up. If only I could put a Deathmark on you, you piece of shit.”

  In an instant, he and his cigarette-breath hovered inches away from me, but behind him, outlining his form, was a black-as-night miasma creeping across the walls and ceiling like the fingers of a beast. I had never seen anything like it—not in my worst nightmares. Every molecule in my body trembled at its gravity. The thing behind Chad was an Eidolon, or at least it had to be, because Scriveners didn’t have the power to transform into black masses of energy. Eidolons did. And this one was far more powerful than any ordinary death dealer.

  That’s a goddamn Eidolon, too. Just like Chad.

  At that revelation I found enough air for a full-bodied scream, one that shredded my vocal cords as terror poured out of my lungs.

  Unlike Chad, this Eidolon was death in rare form, and its mass swathed the hallways from floor to ceiling. A pair of eyes bright as rubies cut through the blackness. Its magnetism dragged Chad toward it.

  One stomp of its shadowy foot shook the whole apartment building. I grabbed onto the doorknob of my next door neighbor, the only thing that kept me upright.

  The hallway quaked again. A sconce toppled from the wall and hung from a thin brown wire. Picture frames fell to the floor, cracking the glass.

  I dared to look at the Eidolon behind Chad, wondering if he was here for me, possibly to take me to see Head Reaper Marin, possibly because they were working together. A skeletal face emerged from the darkness. Its massive jaw unhinged and dropped like a snake swallowing its kill as a chorus of blood-curdling screams rattled me from the inside out. My eardrums throbbed.

  I threw my hands over my ears and watched on in horror as the Eidolon took on Chad, and not me. Chad fought back, transforming into his own version of a monstrous blackness, but he did not compare. Whatever challenged him outweighed his influence, despite his best effort. I could not help but think this other Eidolon was there to knock Chad out of the way, set on taking me to Head Reaper himself.

  As I had done before, and without thinking, I ran for my apartment, slammed the door shut behind me, put on the chain lock, and shoved my entertainment unit in front of the door. These things wouldn’t stop Eidolons from entering my home, but the layers of obstacles gave me an illusion of protection.

  Rigid, I stood in front of the barricade listening to the sound of two Eidolons settling their scores in the hallway, and I wondered how no one else heard the ruckus. Or were my neighbors too scared, or too smart, to emerge from their apartments?

  Heart racing, I waited. And then I remembered Dudley. I waited a moment longer. Just as suddenly as the bedlam erupted, it was over. The room fell into silence. From under the couch came a soft whimper and the thin white tail of my black and white mutt.

  “If I explain it again, will you let me in?” Noted rebel, Brent Hume, the Kentucky Eidolon Reaper, asked from outside my locked living room window. He sat scrunched on the fire escape wearing the same blue flannel and taped boots ensemble as the day before.

  Eidolons were responsible for eliminating the Master Scriveners with Marin’s full endorsement. Brent had told me that some Eidolons did not agree with Marin’s destruction. Was Brent one of them? Or was he duping me?

  This locked window would not keep me safe from him if he wanted to cause trouble, but it felt more reasonable to lock it than to leave my future completely to fate.

  Dudley peeked around the lip of the couch at me. He didn’t want another visitor tonight. Neither did I, but Brent was determined to have a heart-to-heart about what happened in the hallway only minutes earlier.

  “Ollie, please, it’s cold out here,” Brent nudged.

  “You’re an Eidolon. You could be up to no good, like Chad.”

  There was a distinctive, tired grumble and then, “But I’m not. Chad was following us when we went out for drinks the other night. Since I’ve known the Eidolon for decades, I knew he was up to something, so I followed him to your apartment tonight because there’s only one reason he is stalking you.”

  “What for?”

  “Getting you to exhibit more signs of Masterhood,” he said as if I was an idiot for not considering this. When I glowered, he raised his hands and said, “Sorry. It’s just very cold out here. It looks very warm in there.”

  “I keep it a balmy seventy-two degrees.” I was a compassionate Stygian. Despite witnessing Brent’s obvious discomfort with Québec’s frigidity, this was not one of my empathetic moments. “How can I be sure you aren’t here to finish what Chad started? You two could be working for the same goal for all I know.”

  “I get that.” He sighed and raked his fingers through his hair. “Is there something I can do to assure you I’m not out to harm you?”

  I gave minimal thought to my answer before I said, “Go away.”

  “I will once I know Chad is no longer a problem.”

  “I don’t need you to protect me.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with help from your friends.” He was playing to something I knew too well. I preferred doing everything on my own—tying my shoes when I was seven or learning to bake cookies when I was ten or starting my work in the busin
ess of Death when I was sixteen. Now I was facing the greatest challenge—keeping myself from being a target for Head Reaper Marin and his cronies.

  Perhaps I did need help, but was Brent the Rebel the right help?

  “I won’t hurt you. Ever,” Brent stressed. “Please, let me in. I’ll stay long enough to warm up and then I’ll keep watch outside in case Chad returns.”

  “Better you stay outside.”

  “Look, Ollie, if I was set on bringing you down, I would’ve done it already, and I could easily do it now. Please trust me,” he said with a slight of cockiness that, oddly, didn’t aggravate my sensibilities, something that Chad, the other Eidolon, never failed to do.

  Brent had a point, however. For good measure, and without making an announcement, I jumped to my feet and ran to my bedroom closet to retrieve Miss Piggy— the Mossberg shotgun that Papa had given to me as a birthday gift three years earlier. Brent’s blue eyes widened when he saw me reappear with the weapon. Loading a couple of buckshots into the barrel did not invite friendly conversation, but I couldn’t let the Eidolon sit outside in the sub-zero temperatures. Even though nothing felt like the “right thing to do,” I took a long, deliberate breath and opened the window wide enough to let Brent slide gracefully into my apartment.

  After rubbing his hands together for warmth, he gave me and Miss Piggy a soft, concerned smile. I didn’t know what to give back. A high-five? A hug? A cap in the knee?

  The most logical thing to do was sit down and pretend everything was normal, so I planted myself on the couch with Dudley hiding underneath my feet, the gun on my lap, and Brent standing across from me, a powerful Grim Reaper with a predilection for pummeling bully Stygians in the late hours of the night.

  “This is Miss Piggy,” I said, addressing the metal and gunpowder elephant in the room.

  “Charming.” He never took his attention off the weapon.

  “This won’t kill Stygians, but it will hurt bad enough and long enough that I can escape.”

  Eyebrows raised, he nodded. He understood.

  “Sit.” I pointed at the chair behind him. Not one to argue with a Scrivener holding a loaded shotgun named after a Muppet, he slipped out of his jacket, set it aside, and did as I said. Once he settled into his chair, I regarded him with a smile—not a happy, welcome-home sort of smile but one that addressed two very important things about our budding friendship—he was still a rebel and he was an Eidolon, powerful enough to ferry someone like me to very bad places.

  “Did they teach you that screaming shadow technique in Worst Nightmares 101?” I asked after minutes of silent, racing thoughts.

  With the sleeves of his flannel cuffed around his elbows, he crossed his arms, flexing every muscle. My toes curled inside my socks at such unassuming machismo.

  “It’s more of a graduate level course. Worst Nightmares 666,” he said, dryly.

  “When we went out the other day, were you gonna tell me you’re an Eidolon?”

  “I was until you spoke so negatively about them.”

  “You killed the Master Scriveners and then sent their souls to suffer in Erebus,” I growled, fingering the trigger of the shotgun.

  “They killed the Master Scriveners. I never touched one and never will. My loyalty has always stayed with the rebellion, not Marin and his mindless followers.”

  I scrunched my brow as I tried to discern Brent’s emotions. “So you don’t like Chad?”

  “No. He has got his head so far up Marin’s ass that it’s difficult to see where one stops and the other begins.”

  The visual of a Chad-Marin hybrid should’ve been scary. But it wasn’t.

  “So was Chad involved in the Purge?”

  “He and others, yes.”

  “Where do you come in?” I remained vigilant as the conversation unraveled.

  “That red and black sticker on my ID came from my attempt to stop several Eidolons, Chad included, from taking out Master Scrivener Flemington years ago. I didn’t succeed. Her soul was sent to Erebus after she was killed, and I was sent to prison.”

  So many Scriveners had been sent to Erebus that their names blended into a collection of words and nothing more. However, Scrivener Flemington was familiar if only because her Deathmark had fascinated me since I was a child. Hers was a sun and moon, day and night.

  “Why didn’t Marin do away with you when you tried to help Flemington?” I asked.

  “I’m more useful to him alive. He thinks he can convince me to join him. Hope springs eternal.” Brent’s cunning grin, one that seemed to say a hundred things about him in just the slightest shift in his lips, forced me to tighten my grip on the shotgun. As much as I would’ve preferred to overlook it, this Eidolon made my center tremble from across the room. Power and composure mixed with perfect charm—it was impossible to resist, no matter that I was still quivering from seeing his Grim-Reaper-on-steroids alter ego.

  “So you’re here because you want something. What is it?” I wasn’t born yesterday. He was here for one thing and because he had already helped me, I was, in a sense, indebted to him.

  His eyes narrowed. “They know you are on the fast track to Masterhood. They don’t want Master Scriveners. You are a threat. They will eliminate that threat as soon as they can.”

  The shotgun felt like an icicle in my hands.

  “You interested in earning the rebel’s red and black sticker?” he asked.

  I pulled Miss Piggy closer to my body, preparing for something, though I wasn’t sure what. “Why would I want that?”

  “To make Styx a better place. To make things right and as they should be.” Brent’s voice never rose in pitch or tone, but his conviction was tangible, hovering over every syllable, over every word.

  “What about saving a human I care about?” I said. “My friend, Eve—”

  “The barista.”

  “Yes. If we make Styx a better place, we can help her.”

  Brent leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees. “What do you mean?”

  I didn’t immediately answer because trust was a valuable commodity these days. I wasn’t sure that I trusted Brent—or anyone—but my aching conscience begged for relief. I would find a way to help her, and it was possible the source was sitting across from me.

  “I had to give Eve a Deathmark yesterday,” I confessed. “It’s infected, from what her boyfriend said. If my Deathmark works anything like it has been lately, she’ll be dead in hours. A day, maybe. She won’t get to see her mother on her birthday. I should not have done it, but Chad was there. He made sure I went through with it. I want to help her…to delay her death so she can get her affairs in order. It’s the least I can do.”

  Brent rubbed his chin. The gesture made me aware of his stubble and that it was a fine look for him. Noticing his attractiveness during a conversation about Eve made me feel even worse.

  “Eve asked for a Deathmark. It’s her time,” he said. “If we worked together, we could make sure that Styx is working fairly, not like it is now. We could do it in honor of Eve, though.”

  My mood quickly turned sour. His reply wasn’t what I wanted to hear. Had he told me he’d help me secure Eve time to say good-bye to her mother and this world, I would have been more inclined to give his request some thought. Rebellions were idealistic. Giving someone a second chance was a noble and practical act.

  I sniggered. “Would we be Batman and Robin running around Gotham saving the day if we do this? Would we get to drive the Batmobile and jump off buildings, too?”

  He looked at me as if I’d sprouted offensive, coin-sized warts on my face. “I’m serious. I cannot do any of it without your help.”

  I returned a perplexed, hard stare.

  “Ollie, a Master Scrivener and an Eidolon can take out the Head Reaper. This is why I need you—we can do it, but only together.” His summary sounded more like he was dictating directions for putting together furniture.

  But his request was twenty-four hours too late. Yesterday he a
nd I could have taken Head Reaper Marin out, and today Eve wouldn’t be wearing my Deathmark. I had one response to his brazen and treasonous proposition. After setting Miss Piggy on my lap, I held out both my fists at Brent. He looked perplexed, so I said, “Choose one.”

  He picked my right hand. I turned it upright and opened my fist. He stared for a moment, looking at my flattened palm. “There’s nothing there.”

  “Exactly,” I said with cheer. “That’s how many fucks I give about your rebellion, Eidolon Hume.”

  He blinked incredulously. I could see “Is she for real?” running in a hamster wheel inside his head. And then, he unfolded his arms and rose to his full, gargantuan height. The visual should have frightened me into hiding in a closet, but it didn’t. He wouldn’t draw me into his one-Eidolon rebellion.

  “I see,” he said in a forced calm, jugular vein popping from his muscular neck. “You’re too scared to stand up for what’s right. I don’t blame you. Fear is how he gets us.”

  “I’m not scared. We simply don’t have the same goals in mind.” My hands were back on the stock and trigger of Miss Piggy as I stood up across from him.

  For a while we stared at each other in silence, because neither of us had anything more to say. Dudley was still underneath the couch, nails scraping the wood floor as he tried to get comfortable.

  “Thanks for your help with Chad tonight,” I said with as much gratitude as I could muster. “I’d appreciate it if you’d leave. I can—”

  “Ollie, please, I think we’re getting off on the wrong—”

  “—take care of myself from here on out.” I disliked knowing Brent would spend the remainder of the night out in the cold, assuming he had nowhere else to go. But he wasn’t my friend if he spent every interaction trying to lure me into a rebellion.

  His shoulders drooped when he turned to the window. “I’m sorry that I’ve offended you.”

  With that, he left, and my vise grip on Miss Piggy eased.

  Chapter Seven

  “Give me the waters of Lethe that numb the heart, if they exist, I will still not have the power to forget you.”