The Reaper's Kiss

by Abigail Baker

  Here was where it would happen.

  Here was where Eve would die.

  “Is it bad, Ollie?” she whispered again. Her breathing was shallow. As I chose to turn my inspection of her back into a hug, her body gradually began to sag in my arms.

  “It’s okay,” I said, choking back tears. “You’re going to be fine.”

  “You’re lying.” She tried to make that a joke.

  I laughed. I had to.

  “Eve, I’m sorry. So damn sorry.”

  “Eve!” shouted Remy. His boots on the pavement were like timpani drums against the syncopated rhythm of Eve’s broken breaths. “Oh, my God.”

  My friend was wrenched from my arms. She collapsed when Remy took her from me. He did his best to keep her from falling to the cold asphalt, but his effort was for nothing. She was fading, quickly.

  “Eve, baby! Eve!” Remy scooped her upper body into his arms and cradled her. He inspected his hand after he had touched her wound. Blood dripped from his fingers.

  “Call the medics!” Remy screamed at me.

  In some way, I was watching a movie—a fucking tearjerker—as I stood above Remy and Eve’s last moments together. I should have called an ambulance because that was the right thing to do, because Remy begged me to. With a shake of my head to snap me out of my stupor, I dug into my pocket to grab my phone. Someone could stop the bleeding. Eve could live, even if for a few more hours.

  I made the call. I spoke to the person on the other line as if I were a robot. With the phone still to my ear and the voice on the line prattling on, I spotted Nick emerging from the shadows. It was his eyes that sent my world reeling into oblivion.

  Gold eyes. Nick wasn’t just a criminal punk. Nick was a Reaper.

  My phone dropped to the ground at my feet.

  “Baird,” I said loud enough for Nick to hear.

  He paused.

  “Nicholas Baird,” I added. “Reaper.”

  His gold stare grew brighter when I said the last part.

  “Did Chad send you for this job?” I said as Remy screamed at us to help him with Eve’s bleeding.

  Nick never bothered to speak. His silence was answer enough.

  My stomach roiled with a mixture of emotions. But sitting at the top of the concoction was wrath. Red anger flourished in my fingertips. I made no effort to hide my hands. I stood over Remy and Eve like a mother lioness over her injured cub. If Nick wanted to do his job on Eve, he’d have to get through me first, and then he’d have to contend with the paramedics who would save her. I knew they would.

  My red-hand warning was what he needed to know—I was not human. The Reaper lunged at me. I ran at him, using my shoulder to stop him exactly as Papa had taught me to do. But even though I was fast, Nick got a hand around my throat, and the other clutched my dreadlocks. His grip was iron, fierce iron, squeezing out what air I had left.

  “Nick, help us!” Remy shouted as he held his dying beloved.

  The Reaper’s gold eyes grew brighter, nearly blinding me, and my insides curdled.

  How had I overlooked that he was a Reaper? None of that mattered when the horror that he was likely Eve’s ferryman came over me.

  Nick’s grip on my neck tightened. I would soon pass out, and then he’d finish Eve. I had to stop him, had to bring him to his knees right now, not thirty seconds from now.

  Not giving a damn about Level Five or Level One Hundred Offenses, I threw my hands—now bright red—around Nick’s throat. He roared as the skin on his neck began to cook from my blistering touch. I only wanted to burn him enough to get him to let go. He didn’t. In his eyes, I watched pain and pride in a fierce battle.

  “Ollie,” Remy’s voice was a distant call as I forced more heat into my hands.

  “Get Eve out of here,” I gasped.

  “Chad told me you’d try to intervene,” Nick said, finally speaking.

  The world spun. Black spots marred my vision. From behind Nick’s dingy brown hair came the blur of a metal trashcan. Remy had left Eve’s side long enough to take a swing on my behalf. The bin sent Nick into a stagger but didn’t break his grip on my neck.

  Those eyes of death went from yellow to a blinding gold. He turned on Remy. I couldn’t move fast enough to stop Nick from snatching the trash bin from him. Metal struck Remy’s face. Blood exploded over us as he crumpled to the pavement.

  The attack on Remy gave me just enough time to throw an elbow into Nick’s side. It was for nothing. He wouldn’t go down so easily. Nick wrenched me toward the sidewalk. His target was the hood of a parked car.

  Unconcerned that I might burn him to ashes, I swung my hot hands at his body. My fingernails dug into his flesh on his arms, burning off the topmost layer. I had expected him to throw me through a window or snap my neck. I would have preferred it.

  Instead, he flung me face down next to Eve on the road. Her blood had already pooled around her. Her face was still and pale. Tears swelled in my eyes.

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I couldn’t save you,” I cried.

  A knee rammed my back, cracking a bone in my spine. I flattened onto my belly, defenseless as agony raced through my body.

  It did not matter if Nick had realized ten minutes earlier or only just now that I was Stygian; his determination was all I needed to know that he recognized what I was and how to do proper damage.

  Death teeming in his hardened expression, Nick turned on Eve. His eyes were locked on something that only he and I could see. The Deathmark on Eve’s shoulder glowed through her yellow jacket. Fiery lines in the skull pulsated, beckoning her Reaper to complete the job. Nick curled a hand around Eve’s thin bicep and the Deathmark. That small touch was what he needed to destroy what I was fighting to protect. His eyes sparked victoriously as he started to withdraw Eve’s soul. And she couldn’t fight back. She stared vacantly at her Grim Reaper as all humans did when it was their time.

  The heat in my crimson hands charred the pavement when I pushed myself upright, leaving burn marks on the road. I climbed to my knees and reached after the enemy. Through my tears, the sparkling red orbs of my fists guided me to my victim.

  I didn’t feel the suppleness of Nick’s skin. It singed too quickly. A saccharine tang of burned flesh enveloped my senses. It smelled of bittersweet triumph.

  My eyes cleared when Nick bellowed, voice echoing.

  Eve’s spirit hovered half in her body and half in Styx, awaiting the remainder of her ferrying. There was no emotion on her soul’s face as her body lay forgotten and bleeding on the ground. She was vacant. Lost. Stuck in purgatory.

  But Eve wasn’t dead yet.

  When I finally confronted Nick, it was not his scowl that chilled my firestorm, but what was burned into his left cheek. My reddened palm print was stamped on his face.

  And in the middle was my Deathmark.

  Chapter Eleven

  “The skull is Death. From it, you will help me recover the balance of life.”

  —Head Reaper Marin

  The look in my eyes said it all. Nick’s quivering fingertips feathered his cheek and quickly retracted when his skin sizzled.

  The shape was crude, but it was definitely a skull, and it smiled triumphantly back at me. How had I done this? How had I transferred my Deathmark with only my hand?

  I could burn Stygians, sure, but put Deathmarks on them? And without a tattoo machine? Gerard and Mama and Papa never told me about this level of skill. Gerard had always said only Master Scriveners could put a Deathmark on a Stygian, and to even try would cause trouble for me with the Head Reaper. So it had never occurred to me to go near any Stygian with my tattoo machine. But this was entirely different. This was a Deathmark put there by the palm of my hand and nothing else.

  How was it possible unless…unless I actually was bound for Masterhood?

  “You…” Nick paused. “You bitch!”

  The skull elevated his wrath and understandably so. From what I knew, a Deathmark on another Stygian was no different than a
Deathmark on a human. It hastened death. Nick would soon meet his maker because of my doing.

  I had no idea what level of offense this warranted, but I was positive it would not get me a slap on the hand and community service. Erebus would be my next stop.

  But as angry as Nick was about the mark on his face, my anger was equal to his. I wouldn’t let this asshole have anything else. I wouldn’t back down for his satisfaction.

  I forced my bodyweight into him, and he went down, slamming into a nearby parked sedan. He flailed and struggled to find his footing. I used what leverage I had and pinned him to the car, standing face to face with him, my fiery hands clutching his throat. This time I was burning through his neck, not just the topmost layer of his skin. My fingertips sank down into his muscle. I would make my point. Here. Now. I would.

  “Tell Chad and anyone else who will listen that I’m done following your orders,” I said with a fierce voice I didn’t recognize. “I am not your fucking puppet!”

  Something sharp pressed between my lower ribs and I felt a hot wetness pouring out. I found a switchblade buried in my side, and Nick was forcing the weapon deeper.

  That’s when the pain registered.

  I cried out as torment spread from my core, sending signals to the rest of my beaten body to shut down—it couldn’t take any more. But my hands grew more determined. The wronged Scrivener in me would not let him—or Marin or Chad—win. Breathing became laborious as blood flowed into my lungs. I closed my eyes, not to avoid the look in his, or the way his neck shed its layers beneath my clutches, but to focus my remaining energy.

  “Ollie!” shouted a man. “Don’t!”

  Brent threw his arms around my waist and wrenched me from my prey. Nick collapsed, gasping. The switchblade dropped to the pavement. Brent released me as quickly as he’d snatched me away from doing further harm to Nick Baird. I stumbled backward, nearly losing my balance entirely, grasping my ribs and spitting blood.

  Nick cowered against the car. Brent didn’t transform into his dark alter ego to make his point. There was no action, no attack, simply electrified silence as he stared down at Nick, his red eyes ready to devour the Reaper whole.

  Nick threw an arm over his face to avoid the Eidolon’s grisly stare.

  “You’re lucky I stopped her,” Brent growled. “Now get the fuck out of here.”

  Nick did not hesitate. I wanted to believe that this was only because of Brent’s threat as an Eidolon. But the terror in Nick’s expression was very real and very much directed at me.

  In seconds, he was gone, leaving Brent and me standing over Remy and Eve’s bodies. Eve was dead. Her soul sat like a lost child beside her body. Remy was unconscious judging by the slow rise and fall of his chest.

  “You okay?” Brent asked me as I clutched my side.

  I choked back the pain and nodded. It wouldn’t be long before this wound would heal—minutes probably. Nonetheless, it hurt. A deliberate lungful of air stretched my ribs. The movement intensified the pain.

  “You could have melted him,” he said over my keening. “That’s a serious fucking crime.”

  My head spun at just the notion of melting fellow Stygians, let alone the consequences.

  “Here.” He removed his jacket and then his flannel, which he wrapped around my ribcage. He tugged. I yelped. Then he tied a knot in the sleeves to lock the tourniquet in place. I gazed down at the flannel compressing my chest like a corset.

  With each shallow breath, and the support of the makeshift tourniquet, my stab wound began piecing itself back together one layer at a time. I had regularly torn my knees from skateboarding accidents as a kid. I’d healed unnaturally quickly then. I expected a stabbing to heal slower, but it didn’t, for which I was grateful.

  If only the guilt would go away, too.

  “Are you better?” he asked.

  I blinked to clear the wetness from my eyes. “What do you mean by…melt?”

  He put his hands on my sides for support. “Master Scriveners can melt Stygians. You are the ultimate destroyer. You could’ve obliterated him.”

  “You mean kill him?”

  “Yeah. Exactly.”

  In my mind, ideas raced like a raging wildfire. I thought only Eidolons could kill Stygians like Scriveners and Reapers. But if Master Scriveners could kill Stygians, too, that explained why there were so few Masters around and why Chad wanted so badly to see me exhibit signs of such a skillset so he could arrest me. As my mind filled with ideas, my head spun and my heart felt as if it would explode.

  “We can’t talk about this here,” I said as I looked over at Remy and Eve sprawled out on the street. Sirens roared in the distance. Medics were coming to their aid. When they arrived, we would have to be someplace else.

  Remy was still, his head bleeding from the hit. And Eve lay crumpled on the ground. Crimson rivulets spread like fingers out from her body. Their bodies did not haunt me. I had seen death before.

  It was Eve’s soul, sitting next to her body, staring, green eyes calling to me from a purgatory where she didn’t belong, that tore my heart into tiny, meaningless pieces.

  With a little bit of restored energy, I tried to break out of Brent’s grip to crawl to her side. Brent held tight, dragging me back into his arms, too far from Eve to touch her. Her soul tried to stand and walk the ten feet to reach me but was drawn back to her limp body. She was joined to it at the hip, half-ferried, half-dead.

  “Don’t talk to her,” Brent urged.

  “Dammit,” I cried out, the act stinging my punctured lungs. “I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t save her.”

  “Let her go.”

  “She needs me.” Eve’s soul wavered through glassy tears as I wept.

  “She doesn’t know she’s dead. She’s confused.” Brent pulled me upright. “You have to focus on yourself now.”

  “No, no, no.”

  “Listen to me.” He shook my shoulders. “You’ve done what you can. She’s gone. Dead. And you will be too, if you don’t work with me.”

  His white thermal undershirt was caked in blood. He wore a glazed expression, like this was far more horrific than anything he had ever seen. I found that impossible to believe. He was an Eidolon.

  “We can’t stay here.” Brent’s closeness felt good—comforting in light of our predicament. “We have to get out of Québec before this reaches Marin.”

  “I won’t leave her like this.”

  Brent sighed long and hard. Surely he was trying to prepare a response I wouldn’t want to hear. After a moment, he said, “Once the assigned Reaper starts a job, he’s the only one who can finish it. Not even the Head Reaper can pick up where another left off.”

  I met his eyes. I needed him to hear me. “I know you can help Eve. Can’t you go after Baird and make him do it?” I thought of those souls high above and how I’d once feared that Eve would soon become one, too. Now I feared that Eve would become a ghost who haunted the same place day in and day out, feeling forever connected to a body that no longer existed. That was worse.

  Much, much worse.

  Brent’s grip slackened. “Baird won’t come back after what just happened. He’s probably already hunting down Watchmen to tell them what you did. The best we can do is leave her, Ollie. I’m sorry.”

  “Please. I will do anything you need for your rebellion. Anything if you help her, Brent.”

  He set his jaw. “Check her body for a pulse, just in case.”

  I flew to Eve’s body and put my fingers against her lukewarm neck. I focused as I waited for a heartbeat. Eve’s soul leaned forward, observing her body as I tried finding some inkling of life.

  An icy breeze brushed some dreadlocks from my shoulder. Eve had fawned over my hair. She had once touched it and quickly retreated as if she had gone past a personal boundary. It was only in her death that she had the courage to touch my hair again.

  I pressed harder on her neck.

  “She’s gone,” I whispered.

  Brent’s
feet echoed as he made his advance. He knelt across from me. Eve’s body lay between us, but her soul scooted alongside of me, stretching the tether linking her to her corpse. She put her hand over mine. As I gazed at her ghostly touch, I stilled. The tears hanging from my eyelashes didn’t dare to fall.

  “Give me your necklace,” Brent said.

  “Why?”

  “Her body was her anchor. That’s dead. I’ll ferry part of her soul into your necklace as a new anchor. It’s the best I can do.”

  “Then what?”

  “Nothing. If Baird doesn’t finish the job, she’ll be stuck in your necklace until it is destroyed. And if it’s destroyed…she’ll be lost forever.”

  Sniveling, I put my fingers to the pewter lotus flower. It had been a gift from Mama when I finished my apprenticeship years ago. She had said that as a lotus grows out of muddy waters, I would rise out of the ugliness of my job as a Scrivener. I lowered the pendant into Brent’s palm. The black leather cord coiled around the lotus.

  He folded his fingers over it.

  I knew of nothing worse for humans than remaining bodiless and straddled between two worlds. Eve would be that unfortunate soul forever struggling to find a home that was visible, but just out of reach. She would become a ghost story people whispered to each other in the dark hallways of derelict buildings.

  That was no way to exist, not for the cruelest of spirits.

  With her soul in the pendant, she would be with me. I would be Eve’s home—the bearer of her soul.

  Brent pressed the lotus to Eve’s glowing pink Deathmark—the only thing on her body that was animate. Even that was waning.

  “Are you sure you want this for her, Ollie?”

  I had said I wouldn’t let Eve die alone. I would uphold that promise.

  I nodded at the Eidolon kneeling across from me. “Do it.”

  Chapter Twelve