The Reaper's Kiss

by Abigail Baker

  “Don’t slow down, or the ghosts will grab you. They do that to pretty things like you,” Brent said over his shoulder, after breaking again into a determined stride.

  “What ghosts? You didn’t say there was more than one!”

  He didn’t give details as to what they did once they’d grabbed you. I didn’t need to know anyway. As we marched toward the figure, more and more apparitions appeared from behind the trees. Too soon it was a flash mob of ghosts. This was bad news.

  I disliked crowds—even the ghostly kind. And I despised going to those corporate run haunted houses around Halloween because paying people to scare the shit out of me is not my idea of a good time. I poop on my own just fine, thanks.

  I trotted behind Brent as the ghosts broke into a fit of melancholic wails. They swarmed Dudley and me as if we had something they craved. Howling wisps reached out to us. Hair floated around the souls’ gaunt faces. Gnarled flesh pulled over their eye sockets and mouths. There were no eyes—no pupil or iris, but they apparently saw the fear in my face. And they seemed to crowd me all the more for it.

  Brent said not to slow down. I didn’t, but that did not stop the lost spirits from fondling my hair or the lotus pendant anchoring Eve’s soul to me. Some teased Dudley’s floppy ears as he kept one pace ahead.

  “Brent.”

  A cluster of immaterial bodies crowded in front of me.

  “Brent.”

  “Keep walking,” he said, off in the distance.

  Dudley went up on his hind legs, his front paws clasped around my waist, looking at me for direction. His skinny body quivered. So, I scooped him into my arms and ran. The first spirit I blew through left me with a damp chill. The feeling got worse as I moved through the rest of the crowd.

  “Brent!” My scream barely made it over the wailing.

  Dudley dug his claws into my arms.

  “Where are you?”

  Between hazy shapes, I spied our escape. I put Dudley down. He was the first to rocket out of the ghost labyrinth. I followed close on his heels. We waded through a creek and over a small embankment.

  Before us stood a two-story log cabin with a wraparound porch and open windows with floral curtains flicking in the breeze. To the side was a red barn, partly hidden behind the cabin, and a pair of run-down cars from the fifties stacked on bricks. Trees circled the homestead. The place seemed peaceful enough, until the wrong end of a shotgun pressed against my right cheek.

  The man behind the double barrel was shorter than Brent, but twice as wide. His brown beard was flecked with gray. A green ball cap shielded his face from the raging sunlight, but it didn’t hide his menacing stare.

  “Whatcha doing here, little miss?” he asked in an accent far heavier than Brent’s.

  I started to push the strap of Miss Piggy from my shoulder until he cocked his gun. The slide and click was deafening. Maybe a point-blank shootout wasn’t a good idea.

  “Wallie!” Brent shouted from the thicket, somehow behind us when he had been marching ahead. The forest full of broken spirits was disorienting. Brent must have gotten snagged up in their curiosity, too. But if he had, the silvery ghosts allowed him to move freely now. They parted like stage curtains as he marched through the last of the pine trees. Once Brent cleared the woods, the souls filled in where he had trudged, each eyeless spirit watching from afar.

  “Put the gun down,” Brent ordered over their fading cries.

  Wallie did, and Dudley and I took a collective breath of relief.

  “What are you doing here, little brother?” Wallie stepped back. He smiled at me with a nice set of teeth.

  “The herd is getting bigger.” Ignoring his brother’s question, Brent pointed toward the souls on the perimeter of the woods. They peered through the trees just as hostages peered through prison bars. I now understood why Brent didn’t find the sun quite as special as I had. Those souls should be high above, floating toward their salvation, not in Kentucky, haunting a forest, waiting for Head Reaper Marin to take note of their plight. I felt mortified for soaking in the sunlight a moment ago—their suffering was the reason for the sun.

  “The herd is only gonna get bigger if Marin doesn’t do anything.” Wallie’s yellow eyes faded to a cool blue.

  “He doesn’t give a damn about anything but keeping himself in power,” Brent hissed.

  “Right, well.” Wallie put his hand on my shoulder. “Welcome, Miss…”

  “Scrivener Dormier,” I said, feeling a little too formal for the circumstances.

  “Aha, a Scrivener. Have you come here to help us then?” Wallie queried.

  “We’ll see, won’t we,” I said with a fake smile.

  “That we will. You two wait here. I’ll go hide the stepstool before Sue Ellen sees ya.” Like that, Wallie dashed to the cabin, up the porch stairs, and then vanished behind the screen door.

  “Stepstool?” I asked.

  “If you see her carrying one that’s painted like a Holstein cow, best you run.”

  What in the hell had I gotten myself into?

  The cabin’s screen door flung open and smacked against the siding. Her hair tied in a burgundy kerchief, Sue Ellen Hume—I assumed—shuffled onto the porch in a floral housedress far too fitted for her pudgy shape. She carried a black-and-white painted stool.

  “Brent, don’t make me come down there and slap you. Get your ass over here.” She slammed the stool down, straining the integrity of its black-and-white legs.

  Dudley sprinted toward the beater cars, evidently needing no further warning to clear the area. Brent laced his fingers with mine and started toward her.

  “She has the stool,” I said from the corner of my mouth. “Is she an Eidolon, too?”

  He remained silent.

  “Brent?”

  Once we made contact with the porch, I peered up at Sue Ellen. Behind her, Wallie wrung his green ball cap, and his giant forehead glistened with sweat. One, two, three steps and Sue Ellen and I were face-to-face. I finally got the purpose of the stepstool. I was no six-foot tall runway model, but Sue Ellen was shorter than I was by several inches. The stool made it so we could stand eye-to-eye.

  “A hippie.” Sue Ellen’s dark eyes raked me from head to toe. Never had I been self-conscious about my dreadlocks, bell-bottom jeans, and white tank top until that moment. My style wasn’t diverse by any stretch of the imagination. Jeans, an occasional tie-dyed skirt, and tank tops with sweaters for colder days were the extent of my wardrobe. I was a woman of convenience and comfort. Enough said.

  “So are you a Master Scrivener?” Sue Ellen asked, eyes burning through me.

  I was not sure how to answer because I didn’t know for sure, so I said, “Yes, I’m a Master. Best one this side of the Mississippi.”

  “You are a spring chicken if I’ve ever seen one. All the Masters I’ve met have decades on you.”

  Instead of spitting out a witty comeback, I opted for silence as I tried to decipher this Reaper’s brash personality.

  “She’s powerful, Sue Ellen,” Brent said. “She doesn’t need decades to prove herself.”

  Sue Ellen’s lips pulled into a narrow slit. “We’ll see about that.”

  After spending a good hour getting a tour of the Hume’s little farmstead in the Kentucky hills, meeting various Reapers who were either relatives of Brent’s or friends of his family, I could not get a proper feel for Sue Ellen. Brent’s brother-in-law, Wallie, and cousins—Amber and Patrick—were quiet Reapers with nice smiles and agreeable dispositions. Their friends were too many to remember their names. I lost count after twenty. They needed nametags.

  While I could not figure out Sue Ellen, I did catch on that this group of Stygians was the first rebel cell I had ever encountered. The thirty or so Stygians surrounding the outside of the Hume’s modest home proved that rebel cells were no myth or fabrication of the government.

  Sue Ellen had warmed up to me during our tour. That warmth was shown with an arm around my shoulders. I was neither co
mfortable with her closeness nor convinced that it was meant to be friendly. Sue Ellen was obviously this rebel cell’s leader. And she was incredulous of my skillset.

  “According to my nephew, Scrivener Dormier can help us,” Sue Ellen said, her voice vibrating my body. “We have yet to see her at her full power, but Brent assures me she can do the job.”

  Of course, I wasn’t sure what job that was. I wanted to hear it from Sue Ellen and Brent. But I let her complete my introduction, as uncomfortable as it was to stand in front of a group of Reapers staring back at me with hope. If only they knew that I was just as hopeful they’d be able to protect me from my fate.

  As quickly as the introductions and tour began, Sue Ellen pulled me into the home, where I walked into a living room covered in pictures upon pictures of the Hume family.

  “Brent and Wallie have to meet with some of the rebels.” Sue Ellen sat down in a wooden rocking chair. The furniture creaked as her weight settled. “This will give us time to get to know each other.”

  Trying to keep up appearances, I wandered from picture to picture, observing the faces of the Hume family from as far back as the Civil War. I carefully searched for a picture of Brent.

  “You don’t like me,” I said, feigning confidence.

  “I never judge someone until I know them, Scrivener. I don’t trust you.”

  “Why?” I paused in front of a picture from the mid-1950’s that piqued my interest. The man was very clearly Brent. The woman next to him looked to be his wife or girlfriend by the way they were holding hands.

  “You are young. The rebellion needs an experienced Master Scrivener.” Sue Ellen began rocking in her chair. The creak of wood against wood instantly created a grating rhythm.

  “Who is she?” I asked, my interested locked on the picture.

  “Isobel Flemington was a Master Scrivener, much like you, I’m afraid. She lacked experience, too.”

  I moved in closer. My nose nearly bumped the glass. Isobel Flemington was the one Brent had mentioned back in my apartment days ago. She was the Scrivener who gave tattoos of the sun and the moon.

  “Isobel died on account of the rebellion. Brent was never the same after that, bless his heart.”

  The kiss, I thought. Had he regretted getting close to me for this reason?

  “What am I supposed to be to your rebellion?” I pulled away from the picture and turned to make eye contact with Sue Ellen.

  “There’s a difference between you and Isobel. Sit.”

  I made my way to the couch next to her rocking chair. It was covered in a colorful afghan that had seen better times. Careful not to put too much weight on it for fear of ripping it in half, I sat on the edge of the couch. Sue Ellen waited until I was comfortable before she spoke again.

  “Brent told me you put a Deathmark on a Stygian with your hand?”

  Nodding seemed a suitable reply.

  “What made you do this, child?”

  I formed my thoughts carefully before I dared open my mouth. “I was provoked.”

  “You were attacked?”

  “Yes.” In my mind I saw Eve’s body lying on the pavement.

  “Did you know you could put a Deathmark on another like so?”

  “Nope.” Trying to keep myself together was becoming a challenge as we sat face to face. Sue Ellen had a way of seeing past the bullshit. This skill was intimidating.

  “Could you do it again?”

  I smiled, cynically. “Depends.”

  “Let me rephrase my question, child.” Her voice was cutting. “Would you do it again?”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “For how could this Scrivener be a terrorist?

  This rebel is no radical, no dissident. She is our champion.”

  —HermesHarbinger.com, 11:05 am 17 April, Sunday

  17 April

  My brain was slow cooking in a bone crock-pot. Springtime Kentucky nights were far warmer than Québec’s. My bellbottoms dangled over the edge of the dusty mattress. A tank top and panties were all I could stand to wear in the stuffy barn loft. Though I was close to naked in another person’s guest room, I was not self-conscious about it. Heat makes a modest soul do strange things.

  Illuminated by a kerosene lamp on the banister of the loft, Brent sat shirtless and slumped in a wooden chair, his back to me, oblivious to my suffering as he stared out over the darkness of the barn below, keeping watch.

  The golden blush of light swathed him from the waist up. I should have been spellbound by the rise and fall of his shoulders or the rope of muscles stretched over his large frame or how it would feel moving in and above me.

  But I wasn’t.

  My attention was fixed on the tattoo between Brent’s shoulder blades. Inside a Celtic infinity loop was a skeleton cupping the earth in one hand and a scythe in the other. The entire piece looked hours fresh.

  I had no clock to tell me how long I had been staring. I tried to gather the courage to ask him about it. Stupidly, I clammed up every time. And yet, with this hesitation, I mustered the nerve to inch across the mattress and slink behind him to have a closer look, on the off chance he had fallen asleep.

  Heat boils away common sense I suppose.

  I squinted as I crept closer. The lines of ink were flawless. No imperfections that made human-done tattoos so endearing. Whoever had tattooed it was a master of her skill. And if I was correct, the lineage was Celtic. The filigree swerved and arched with purpose, telling an intricate story about Death and his duty to humanity.

  “It’s about eighty years old,” he said.

  Halfway across the bed, I froze in my elbow-crawl, butt in the air. He’d heard me coming.

  “Looks good, doesn’t it?” He started to turn around.

  I accomplished my first back flip. But I had no time to celebrate the triumph of mind over body, as I was determined to conceal myself with the bed sheet.

  “There’s no sense in covering up,” he said in a husky but lighthearted voice. “I’ve got a great imagination.”

  “Was your ink done by Isobel?”

  He nodded. A sad smile stretched across his lips. His eyes glazed as people’s do when they’re thinking about a memory.

  “Sue Ellen told me a little about her today,” I said.

  “Figured she might.”

  “I’m sorry that you lost her.”

  His chest and shoulders expanded from a deep, calculated breath. “I’m sorry I kissed you and then acted like it was wrong.”

  That gave me pause. “I thought you said romance and rebellions don’t go together?”

  “I did.” In the faint lighting, I watched one eyebrow lift, egging my libido on. At the moment, hiding out in the middle of Kentucky, standing on the edge of a life of a rebel, I felt oddly connected to Brent. I knew enough to feel somewhat at ease in his company, but not quite enough details to let him see just how much I needed him.

  “Why did Isobel give you that tattoo?”

  “It was a test of trust. She could’ve put her Deathmark there,” he breathed out as if he had a million things to share and only the air to speak my name. His attention drifted to my right side. “How’s your stab wound?”

  I noticed how he twitched when I lifted the hem of my tank top to bare my stomach and ribs. The reflex was not an effort to shy away from seeing my body, but from something more carnal in nature. I deduced this from the subtle flicker of red in his blue eyes. Even this Eidolon, the most powerful Stygian I had met, next to Head Reaper Marin, couldn’t mask his desire.

  “The wound is fine.” I had healed hours and hours ago. He knew that. I did too. Exposing my body was not entirely fair, but felt just fine from my perspective.

  “I was thinking about what happened back in your apartment.” His voice was soft and low, like he had been formulating a way to talk about it without igniting a fight between us—or something more pleasurable. “I shouldn’t have come on so strong. But you are…you’re an amazing being, Dormier.”

  I said not
hing, trying to continue being the stoic hard-ass who was baring her torso in effort to lure him closer.

  “We shouldn’t allow ourselves to get involved,” he added as he rose from the chair. Those butterflies in my stomach sprang into jumping jacks as he moved toward the bed.

  “Why not?” I stuttered when his knee dipped into the mattress.

  “I don’t want the same thing that happened to Isobel to happen to you.”

  I snorted a laugh. “I’ve fucked up my life without the help of a rebellion. No reason that should get in our way.”

  Thankfully, he laughed too, as if it gave him relief.

  A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth as he peeled back the tank top over the rise of my breasts.

  I was certain he heard those butterflies thumping my stomach walls. But I didn’t care either. He needed to know that behind my snarky exterior, I wanted him as well.

  He trailed fingers across the plane of my belly. I gasped when they crept northward and stopped on the new pinkish scar. His eyes settled where his fingertips sat. For a while, he stared, and I found it in me to breathe steadily. That ended when he put his lips to the scar.

  Had he done nothing more, I would have remained satisfied. But his hands found my hips, and a jolt zipped from my toes to my head. That feral stare wordlessly told me what he was planning next.

  His thumb locked underneath my chin to force my face to align with his. There was softness in his lips when they met mine. His tongue moved carefully, asking for entry. And with each pass, I opened wider, inviting him.

  I slipped my cool hands around his neck and through his hair. With a burst of excitement, I noted that in this moment, in these conditions, I fully trusted this Reaper. So I pulled my top over my head. He released a strange but contented growl, hooked his fingers on my panties, ignoring the catch of my breath, and slid them down my legs. Tingling rushed through me as I lay naked before him.

  He covered my breasts entirely with his palms, kneading them with careful attention to each moan that slipped through my lips. I had no chance to overindulge. Those hands, working out the tension in my body, skated down to my hips, and then were gone.