The sounds of rustling clothing brought an impish smile to my lips. I watched his jeans slide over his hips to reveal his swollen erection. A pass of my tongue over my teeth and I curled my fingers around him, noting that my grip barely encircled him.
A bass rumble emanated from a secret place when I began to caress him, learning every inch of his manhood with each stroke. I quickly struck a rhythm while savoring the spasms rippling through him. He pinned my wrists on either side of my head and covered me. His lips took mine hostage again. The pillow dipped when he pressed his forearms into it for balance. Our fingers interlaced as his hips, hard with muscle, glided between my legs, forcing the tip of his sex against me.
“I want you,” he whispered into my ear.
My lungs screamed for air, but somehow I uttered, “I want you, too.”
Brent followed through to the hilt, stretching me beyond expectations. I threw my head back into the pillow and cried out in a blend of passion and pain—two things I never knew could be so damn harmonious.
But he stayed motionless. Quiet. As if he was uncertain.
“What is—?”
“Shh.” His hand covered my mouth.
I was about to reach for his shoulders when he flew to his feet and into his jeans. I rolled up, riveted in panic.
“Stay here.” He buttoned his jeans.
He tracked around the mattress, his muscles flexing with the cadence of his stride, jeans hanging from his hips. He descended into the darkness as Dudley sprang out of it. The mutt rushed up the stairs of the loft with his ears pulled back and tail tucked between his bony hind legs. His bottom was the last I saw of him before he vanished behind my backpack.
I clawed at the floor for something to wear other than the bed sheet. I found my panties and Brent’s shirt. I threw both on. The buttoned flannel hung to my knees.
With my shotgun slung over my shoulder, I raced down the stairs. The barn door was slightly ajar where Brent had slipped out. I peeked through the crack. Brent’s backside was to me. The moon didn’t have to accentuate his musculature any more than nature already had. In only jeans, he was a Greek statue.
And he was standing before a militia of Watchmen, their scythe pins glistening in the moonlight.
Chapter Fifteen
“Death is our mission. Not egalitarianism.”
—Bill of Stygian Rights, Preamble
“She can’t run forever,” said a voice from the other side of the cracked barn door. “Turn her in.”
“I don’t know where she is.” Brent’s voice was deeper than I had ever heard.
“You’ll be charged for a Level Ten for harboring a terrorist if you don’t hand her over. We know you’re together to overthrow Marin’s seat.”
I cupped a hand over my mouth. A terrorist? Overthrow Marin?
“You weren’t listening, son. I said I don’t know where she is.”
“We have a warrant decreed by Head Reaper Marin to search any location on the basis of suspicion.” In the crack between the doors, the Watchman moved into eyeshot. He was quite young, but his eyes shimmered as bright as the moon. He was primed for a fight. “Let us search the property, and we won’t make further trouble for you.”
Brent hooted with laughter. “You are going to make trouble for me?”
“We’ll do what we have to, Eidolon Hume.” There was no mistaking his trepidation.
“What’s going on?” Wallie was outside the barn, somewhere I couldn’t see.
“You are not allowed on this property without permission, Watchmen.” And there was Sue Ellen.
“We’re here for Scrivener Olivia Iris Dormier, ma’am.”
Brent left no opportunity for further conversation before he shifted into that lightless phantom. Sue Ellen’s yelp echoed when a gang of Reapers swarmed him.
I started to pull the barn door open to help, when a hand found mine. Yellow eyes, like the headlights of a far-off car, stared at me. The rebel’s grip was unrelenting as he dragged me across the barn toward a door that hung ajar. Another pair of yellow eyes peered through the door, waiting for us.
“Come with us,” a teenage female Reaper murmured, grabbing my hand to help her young ally steer me toward the forest behind the barn.
I glanced over my shoulder, thinking of Brent defending a Scrivener from a hoard of Watchmen. Surely he could take them, but there was no dignity in running if it meant leaving him to fight my battle.
I resisted the young Reapers’ pulls. “I’ve got to help him.”
“No,” one cried. “Brent told us to hide you if they come.”
“We have a spot where they’ll never find you,” said another voice from behind me. I turned to see yet another Reaper helping to shuffle me off into hiding.
“Brent knew they’d come?” I said.
“The Watchmen always come looking for trouble.”
I stole another glance at the barn. A flash of black and white galloped toward us. Dudley’s tail circled like a propeller. Thank Hades he made it.
“Come on.” One rebel coiled her arms around my waist and pulled me toward the forest where Dudley had already disappeared.
One leap over a cluster of branches and we were encircled by a fortress of trunks, underbrush, and weeping spirits. Foliage scrabbled at my limbs. Twigs snapped underfoot. Disembodied hands of the ghosts grasped at us. The three young rebels knew the forest well, guiding Dudley and me over logs and patches of woolly moss.
My heart soared into my throat when I spotted a pair of yellow eyes. A Watchman closed his hand around one rebel’s throat and she screeched.
I put the stock of my twelve-gauge against my shoulder when I came to stop. Having never shot anything that breathed, I didn’t know about injuring Watchmen with gunpowder, but it was a damn good night to discover if it would work.
“Let her go,” one rebel screamed. She and the male flanked me.
The Watchman tightened his grip on his victim’s neck.
I cocked the gun.
“Turn yourself in, and I won’t harm her.” The Watchman’s tenor was bitter.
My finger hooked the trigger. Could I get a shot in without hurting my ally?
Behind him, the cooing spirits grew interested. Hands brushed his shoulders and the tips of his hair. He threw them off with an elbow but to no avail.
“You’d hurt innocent Reapers just to get to me?” I asked.
“Better to cut off young fruit than spoil the lot.”
I took aim at his forehead. “I’m going to count to three and then I’m gonna see what triple-ought buckshot will do to a Watchman.”
The rebel coughed as the Watchman’s grip constricted.
“One more chance. Let her go,” I said in a voice that didn’t feel like me.
The rebel’s arms flapped like a bird’s against the hunter’s body.
Through the forest, more Watchmen raced toward us. The ghosts cluttered their path, slowing them down, but they weren’t enough to stop them entirely.
I aligned my shoulders for impact and squeezed the trigger. The gun’s kick threw me off only by a little. A crack reverberated in the treetops. The Watchman’s grip loosened, and the rebel fell forward but caught herself with her hands.
“Run!” I screamed.
The pair at my sides wrenched their friend to her feet and scampered behind me.
The Watchman’s headless body crumpled to the ground. Curious souls gathered around him, uncertain at first. Was he going to join them or rise into the sky? Was he dead? When his spirit didn’t lift out of his body, the souls picked at what was left of his head, pulling out blood vessels, possibly getting back at Death for being so cruel to them.
I cocked the gun again. The click ricocheted inside the cathedral of trees. I had enough shots to take out most of the advancing Watchmen, if my aim was accurate. I locked the muzzle on one as he broke from the pack and closed in. This one was effortless. He went down, and a clique of souls peeled away to inspect him.
“Come
on,” cried the male rebel.
“I said hide,” I barked.
He disappeared back into the undergrowth.
My attention went to another adversary in time to aim and fire again before he reached me but I missed. Until now, I had never missed a shot in my target practice—moving or stationary. I went to readjust my aim but was thrown to the ground. My shoulder blades slammed against a rock.
A red-eyed phantasm looked down at me. For the second time in three days, I was looking into the face of an Eidolon, the black beasts that all Stygians dreaded.
Tonight was the first time I didn’t fear the closeness of an Eidolon.
“Stay down,” his fiendish tone commanded.
“Hume!” Watchmen shouted in warning.
Brent circled to meet the enemies. His mass blocked out sight of the approaching enemy. The only thing in my view, sprawled over the forest floor nearby, was the headless body of the Watchman, thumping and rolling back and forth, entertaining the spirits. If the sight hadn’t struck me as funny, it would have been excellent nightmare fuel.
“Eidolon Hume, we will subdue you if you force us.”
Brent’s miasma intensified, adding the weight of ten men over me, as numbness danced up my legs, creeping toward my core. Soon my legs and hips were submerged in nothing. The pressure grew heavier. I started to panic. My fingers and toes were the first to feel a tug, pulling me toward him like matter drawn into the singularity of a black hole.
So this was what his victims endured? Terror drawn into a noxious vacuum? While my power turned me into magma, Brent’s turned him into arctic death. We were opposing forces, in some ways balanced by our divergence.
I recognized the drop of Brent’s jaw and clapped my hands over my ears, having heard those Eidolon screams more than enough to keep me from sleeping soundly for the rest of my life. In conjunction with that vile chorus were the cheering spirits, watching like bloodthirsty hockey fans from the sidelines. It was too much to bear.
But I had to see him in action.
I craned and stretched my neck to see skin unravel from the Watchmen’s bones as they drifted toward Brent. But as his power grew, I lifted from the ground, drawn into the dark vacuum as well. There was nothing to grasp onto. A second later, I crashed into his backside.
What should have been his spine and muscles, the same muscles I had run my hands over in passion earlier, was gelatinous. I wriggled my fingers and was quickly thrown back by a powerful force. I landed on that cursed rock again. The iciness receded. Voices quieted.
As I lay before Brent, my hearing didn’t instantly return. The trees, the animals, the souls—everything—paused in awe of the power we had witnessed. Brent’s shadow drifted away. Soon he was his human form. The skeleton tattoo, holding the scythe tenaciously in his grip, gazed down at me.
I swore he gave me a wink.
Brent stood over what was left of his prey. At his feet were three shriveled, discolored corpses stuck in their death screams. When Brent breathed out, their remains collapsed into a pile of ash at his feet.
Sue Ellen had a wicked eye on Brent, and she wasted no time expressing her discontent. She marched up to him, grunted, and struck him in the jaw. The controlled turn of Brent’s head worried me. Would he take Sue Ellen out in front of her children?
“We never destroy Watchmen!” she yowled. “Marin will ruin us for this.”
I was on my feet, with hands around Brent’s forearms, before he could make a move on Sue Ellen. Wallie and a few nearby rebels threw themselves in front of her, but which one they were protecting I did not know. We were kidding ourselves though. None of us could stop Brent. The proof was in the Watchmen dust at our feet.
“This rebellion is not about injury to anyone but Marin,” Sue Ellen said.
“I had to do it,” Brent hissed.
“I know.” Sue Ellen spun away. She was halfway to the porch when she shouted, “Wallie, we have to leave. All of us have to leave now!”
Wallie bowed his head. “Marin will send reinforcements once this gets back to him. We can’t let him find us.”
The three teenage rebels who had helped me escape from the barn slowly emerged from the shadows. Each gave me a passing glance of pity as they returned to their campsites. Others followed the same course, heads low, fear in their faces.
“Where will they go?” I asked Brent.
“Anywhere but here.”
“You didn’t have to take them out like—”
“I had to,” he barked. “You are the only Master Scrivener we have. That makes you our only hope to bring Marin down. You are irreplaceable, Ollie.”
My throat tightened upon hearing this. I had to touch Brent’s shoulder to keep from falling to my knees or passing out. “I can’t handle this pressure, Brent.”
“You have no choice anymore. If you turn yourself in, he’ll destroy you. If you stay with me, I’ll make sure you never know what Erebus is like. I promise.”
I liked knowing he was on my side. And perhaps he liked knowing that I was on his.
“So what do we do now?” I said.
“Get out of Dodge.” He squared his shoulders. “But there’s something I need to do first.”
When he ripped the Mossberg from my shoulder, I didn’t bother asking him what he had planned. Who asks a raging Eidolon with a shotgun about his intentions? Not this Scrivener. However, I chased Brent. So did anyone nearby that overheard him.
The ridges of his shoulders were awash in indigo moonlight as he traipsed through the woods and into the yard. The shotgun hung from his shoulder with the same ease that his jeans hung from his hips. He would have been beautiful if it were not for the maniacal lilt in his stride. He approached the rundown cars stacked on cinder blocks and put a fist through the rear window. Glass rained over the backseat.
The glare in his eyes was far more unsettling than anything I had seen from his beastly alter ego. He grabbed a gas can from the car’s backseat. I scarcely had a chance to jump out of his way when he circled to the barn.
Several rebels raced down the steps of the cottage, followed by Sue Ellen and Wallie.
“Brent, what are you—” she silenced when he passed her by without acknowledgement.
The Eidolon’s back flexed in an expanse of muscle as he yanked the massive barn door open. He splashed gasoline over the straw covering the floor and shouted, “Ollie and anyone else, you have one minute to pack your things before this place gets blown to kingdom come.”
I went into action without paying attention to anyone else but myself, my feet barely touched the ground as I ran. In the loft, I tossed everything into my backpack and didn’t pause to slip on pants or shoes. There was no time. Brent hurled the gasoline can aside, where it landed with a hollow thud as I shot out of the powder keg.
The incoherent chattering from outside was filled with worry. Wallie and Sue Ellen stared with dropped jaws.
Brent’s ire was impossible to ignore. And I didn’t want to get in the way of it. So Dudley and I scurried off to one side, safely out of reach. Dudley crowded my legs. He knew trouble was afoot.
Brent put the gunstock to his shoulder, cocked it, aimed it at the kerosene lamp perched on the banister to the loft, and pulled the trigger. The lamp shattered and rained burning oil onto the gasoline. The resulting detonation sent us stumbling backward. Wood lit up like kindling. Smoke swirled from the orange and red flames. Heat burned my face, arms and legs, but left my backside cold.
Something is behind me.
The souls hovered at the forest’s edge, and they watched with interest. I refused to fully look at them. I didn’t want to see their pain or have it burned into my memory. But when the barn was fully engulfed in flames, creating a fire large enough to light the night sky, they drifted toward us.
Hundreds of them filtered into the clearing, down the creek, the embankment, and toward the inferno. I was motionless as a silent infantry of ghosts floated around me. Their chill was filled with relief, not de
spair. And I smiled inside.
The first souls to reach the barn moved into the fire. Their disembodied shapes intertwined with the smoke and flames before they shot toward the sky, at last united with the swarm of souls soaring above. The blend formed a kaleidoscope that if witnessed by human eyes, would merely appear like the smoke of a large pyre. We knew better.
Brent’s attention was glued to the barn as I crept to his side.
“Fire reminds them of what it was like when they were alive,” Brent said, somberly.
“Will it lead them home to the Afterlife?” I asked over the fire’s crackle and Sue Ellen’s wailing.
“Not directly. It’ll only get them out of this place. With any luck, they’ll find their way back to Québec with the other unferried souls where hopefully Marin will let them cross over, but probably not.” We looked at the sky, now clouded over in souls, the way the sky should be when spirits were on their way to meet their destinies. The sun and the stars were beautiful, but they were gifts that were never meant for us. Overcast skies meant Styx was working as it should. And now in this small corner of the world, it was.
“Could you have done that for Eve?”
“Eve was half-ferried from her anchor. For one reason or another, these souls were never given directions to the Afterlife. It’s different. In many ways, worse.”
The truth made me all the sadder for their suffering.
“Let’s hope Marin is in a good mood, if they make it to Lethe.” He shoved my shotgun back into my hands. I dropped everything to catch it. His gaze settled on my bare, muddy legs. “Put on your pants and boots. We’ve got a long hike back to the truck.”
Chapter Sixteen
“All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong.”
—Henry David Thoreau
“A continent-wide search has begun for a confirmed rebel uprising. Only hours ago, it was reported that Master Scrivener Olivia “Ollie” Iris Dormier has gone missing from her post in Québec City.
“Speculation is that Scrivener Dormier has united with known rebel Eidolon Brent Rutherford Hume to protest Head Reaper Marin’s attempt at peaceful restoration of balance between humans and Stygians.”
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