The Reaper's Kiss

by Abigail Baker

  Brent’s fist crushed the radio, reducing the background noise to just the hum of rubber tires on asphalt.

  “I hate that they’re calling us terrorists,” I said as I flicked the corner of my drawing pad with my fingertips. The result was a click, click, click, as I unleashed my anxiety.

  “They think it’s terror if you piss yellow and shit brown.” His eyes were hidden behind mirrored aviator sunglasses as the sun rose higher. “Out west there’s pervasive contempt for Marin. We’ll be fine there. Don’t worry about what you hear on the radio.”

  Easy for him to say. He had learned to live with being a rebel. I hadn’t.

  I thought of Wallie, Sue Ellen, and all the other displaced rebels. We had come into their safe, happy home and, with the help of Marin’s Watchmen, we tore it apart. “What will happen to the rebels?”

  “They’ll find other cells to hide out with. That’s how it has always been. We get chased from place to place.”

  “Doesn’t sound like much of a life.”

  “It’s hell. One of these days it’s gonna stop, even if I have to take Marin out alone.”

  “You can’t take him out alone, though.”

  His aviator sunglasses snapped to me then back to the road.

  “So how does it work exactly? I mean, taking out the Head Reaper.” Not that I was interested in pursuing this cause. Least not yet.

  “Since he’s the top guy, the rules are specific. A Master must put a Deathmark on him. And an Eidolon must ferry him.”

  “Well that sounds easy.” I snorted a laugh. “Let’s go back to Québec and knock on his front door.”

  “Cracker Barrel!” Brent’s hungry outburst caused him to lose control of the truck for a second. Dudley and I sought stability in seats and door handles.

  Twenty minutes later, Brent was gnawing on Necco Wafers as we waited for our table for three at Cracker Barrel. We perused assorted knickknacks in the gift shop seasoned with Yankee Candle’s Fresh Linen Spice. Brent had sweet-talked the hostess into letting Dudley join us. He told her Dudley was my service dog, who kept me composed in crowded social settings. Since the restaurant was packed from one wall to the other, the hostess hadn’t objected.

  We settled on jumbo checkers to pass our time as we waited. Buried deep under Brent’s down jacket for warmth, I scooped the red pieces. Brent took the black. Both of us monitored the area for Watchmen.

  Dudley sat at our feet. He groaned—he wasn’t a fan of board games, just tennis balls.

  “Mama loves Cracker Barrel.” The everlasting knot in my stomach tightened an inch. “Maybe I’ll grab a knickknack for her. Some memento from…what state are we in?”

  “Missouri.” He skipped a black chip over one of my red ones and then surveyed for Watchmen. “I hope you were kidding about going back to Québec.”

  I moved a red chip out of the line of fire. “I wasn’t.”

  “We can’t go back until we’re ready.”

  “Marin should go down today, not a year from today.”

  “Crown me.”

  I scratched my head and then flipped over the game piece to make his plebian chip a king. “How did you do that so fast?”

  “Used to play English Draughts back in the day. I’m that good.”

  “Pin a rose to your nose.” I bounced a red piece over two of his, taking his players for my spoils.

  He grimaced. Brent was a sore loser. Then again, so was I.

  “What was life like back in the day?” I asked, hoping to distract him long enough to cheat my way to a chip’s crowning. That’s how Mama and I rolled. Papa always objected to playing board games with Mama and me for this very reason.

  “Life was hellish,” Brent said with a sigh. “The worst was when Marin assigned me to the Eidolon Naval Unit. I don’t like the water and the things in it.”

  “Like krakens?” I had grown to love krakens after watching Clash of the Titans in sixth-grade history. Who wouldn’t get excited to see a colossal lizardy monster devour a ship? It’s epic.

  “Krakens are mythological creatures. They don’t exist.”

  I gave a shrug. I wasn’t sure if his know-it-all attitude was for fun or for real. I twirled a dreadlock between my fingers as I strategized my next move. Cheating in front of Brent wasn’t easy, even when he scanned for those scythe pins. “Where did you sail?”

  “Shipped out from Le Nouvelle-Orleans in June of 1945, bound for the West Indies.”

  “Did you hunt krakens there?”

  He looked at me like I had two heads, or several tentacles and an appetite for pirate ships, and said, “Spent more time raiding rum distilleries than working. That lasted ten years before Marin put an end to it.”

  He jumped his king over one of my pieces. Another red chip down.

  “Did you get to travel to other places?” I asked.

  “Was stationed in every continent besides Antarctica.” From the lift in his baritone, he liked talking about his past, at least the more pleasant parts of it. “My favorite place was northwestern Montana, along the continental divide in the Rockies.”

  “Why?”

  Melancholy crept into his contemplation. “If you’ve ever wondered if there is something greater than the world as we know it, visit Montana. All that untouched land shows you there’s more than you and me, that we aren’t just employees of Death. It levels the playing field between humans and Stygians. We’re just souls, and we’re happy for it.”

  That was not the answer I expected. “Could you be happy in Montana?”

  “I’d be happy anywhere that makes me feel less like the monster I am.”

  I felt the same. Partly human. Mostly monster. “Are we going to Montana then?”

  He tossed a black chip across the board, surrendering his impending win to me, and leaned back in the rocking chair. “I haven’t seen mountains or breathed their air for too long. I want to see that before we face the heat.”

  I stared, for I couldn’t speak. There was nothing I could say to make his dream a truth. And there was a niggling suspicion that the “heat” he referred to wasn’t for our crimes, but for something greater, something that would change Styx—and us—forever.

  “Dudley, party of three,” the hostess boomed over the intercom.

  After a fairly silent breakfast, we stopped at the gas station next to the restaurant to fill up before the ride west. I wandered around the station’s shop for foods to keep us satiated once our feast would no longer tide us over. Had we been health nuts, this place would have been a nightmare.

  I grabbed what I could carry and waddled to the register. Bags of Cheetos and Funyuns, bottles of soda, Pixie Sticks, and several Kit Kat bars blanketed the counter. The potbellied clerk didn’t flinch at the pile of decadency. With my reddened eyes, dreads, and bellbottoms, he would assume I had a bad case of the munchies.

  “It’s a long drive to Colorado.” I gave a flirty smile.

  He went about scanning the barcodes for each item with the urgency of a stoned tortoise.

  Great. This is going to take forever.

  I folded my arms and gazed through the shop’s glass door. Still wearing those aviator sunglasses, Brent was in the midst of filling the truck’s gas tank. His chestnut hair rustled in the easterly breeze. He almost had me believing he was calmly apathetic through and through.

  I fingered a wad of paper in the pocket of Brent’s jacket. It rustled differently than the masses of empty candy wrappers strewn about in his car. The paper felt heavier. I withdrew it along with a couple of twenty-dollar bills. My heart fluttered when I read “Deathlist” on one corner of the crumpled mess.

  The one he stole from Lethe?

  “Come home. Please,” a distraught voice said, and my eyes snapped up from staring in disbelief at what I was holding. My heart thudded violently in my ribcage as I looked around for the familiar woman’s voice.

  “He’ll send us to Erebus,” the woman spoke again.

  A massive pressure took shape in
my forehead. I shoved the Deathlist back into the jacket pocket when the clerk shifted to one side and revealed, from behind that distended belly, a small television with an antenna.

  I didn’t see a sports game or whatever he was watching. There was no collective cheer from fans or sportscasters giving a quick rundown of the plays.

  What I saw stopped time.

  Mama stood in front of a microphone. Papa was behind her. His eyes turned down like they had at his Meemaw’s funeral years ago. Mama’s face was creased with anxiety. Her hair was messily swept together in an orange bandana. I had never seen them so damaged and browbeaten, not even at the loss of their family members.

  “Please come home.” Mama’s voice broke.

  “Olivia,” Papa urged. “Please help us.”

  My stomach lurched. I was “baby girl” and sometimes Ollie. Not Olivia.

  “Stone and Lorelei Balanchine have been formally charged with a Level Nine Offense. Head Reaper Marin has given Scrivener Dormier forty-eight hours to return to Headquarters, or the Balanchines will be sent to Erebus,” a reporter said as the image of Mama and Papa lingered. “If you come into contact with Scrivener Olivia ‘Ollie’ Dormier, do not attempt to apprehend her. She is dangerous. Contact your local Watchman immediately.”

  A picture of me smiling, as if the photographer caught me in a laugh, flashed onto the screen. My green eyes sparkled. It was not a sinister photo you would expect of a fugitive terrorist. The picture was from Mama and Papa’s collection.

  I doubted it would inspire panic in the hearts of Stygians. My inability to frown in front of any camera lens played to my advantage for once.

  “That’ll be twenty-two sixteen,” the clerk said.

  Startled by his words, I pressed a trembling hand to my chest, my breaths shallow.

  “You okay, miss?” he asked.

  I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t tell him that I had just found Brent’s Deathlist and discovered that my parents were facing damnation. I wiped the tears from my eyes and nodded.

  He dumped the last of my pickings into a brown paper bag anyway. His belly moved back in front of the television screen.

  I slapped the two twenties down on the counter and muttered, “Keep the change.”

  The shop door swung shut behind me. I dove for the truck’s driver’s seat, tossed the bag of food in the back with Dudley, and patted at the ignition. The key slot was empty.

  “Motherfucker!” I pounded the heels of my hands on the steering wheel.

  “Looking for this?” Brent slid into the passenger seat with the truck key pinched between his fingers.

  I plucked it away and rammed it into the ignition. I knew enough about driving a stick shift to put the car into neutral before turning the engine over. That was the extent of my experience. But I would tear through the gears to get the truck back to Québec City.

  He covered the hand that death-gripped the shifter, slowly crisping the leather and melting the steel. “Why are you shaking? What happened in there?”

  Tearful, I shoved him away and clutched the steering wheel.

  “You don’t look right.” He threw his hands around my wrists and gave a tug. I lost contact with the wheel before I could melt it into a defunct blob. “What’s going on?”

  “It’s none of your goddamn business, Brent.”

  He didn’t reply or back down, though I was sure I looked set on administering a Deathmark with my glare. Even as he fought the sting of my heat, he wore the stare of a militant soldier. He had years to perfect the gaze. I wouldn’t conquer it in seconds. So, I blew air from my nose and gazed into the rearview mirror.

  “I can’t do this,” I said at last, and felt no better for it. “I’m not a rebel. I’m a fuckup. Mama and Papa are going to be sent to Erebus unless I go back in the next forty-eight hours.”

  Those sapphire eyes became slits. “Get out of the driver’s seat.”

  “No!”

  “You’ll get out by your will or mine.”

  I steeled myself. “This is my choice. Not yours. I have to save them.”

  “It’s a trap, Ollie. The moment you step back into Québec, Marin will arrest you and banish you in one fell swoop.”

  “I don’t fucking care. I won’t let them go to Erebus on my account!”

  “They’ll go regardless. And you will, too, if you go back. Your parents don’t want you to go down. They’d want you to stand up for yourself.”

  “Bullshit,” I screamed. “It’s bullshit. I have no choice.”

  We sat listening to Dudley’s rustling in the backseat. Every one of the ten minutes we stared each other down, I wanted to yield to his influence. But when I thought of what he might suffer if he remained at my side, what everyone might suffer if I didn’t go back and stand up for Eve and Mama and Papa, I reestablished my resolve.

  “You’re more naïve than I thought if you believe that Marin would show you or your parents any mercy,” he hissed.

  “I have to go back,” I said, “and you can come with me or continue to hide out west.”

  Cussing under his breath, he climbed out of the truck in a huff and slammed the passenger door so hard, a crack slithered across the dirty windshield. I waited until he disappeared into the gas station shop and then I put my hands on the steering wheel. This was my chance to peel off without him. He may not be able to catch up if I cranked through the gears.

  For a second time, the tang of burned leather filled the truck cab.

  “Son-of-a-bitch!” My fist made contact with the dashboard. Bones crunched.

  I wouldn’t run from Marin and let everyone I loved die for my mistakes. There was no valor in it. Sooner or later the Watchmen would find me, and I would face my fate. I wouldn’t spend a lifespan hiding away, yearning for the comforts of what I had thrown away while carrying the lost soul of my friend around my neck.

  Screaming inside the truck was not adequate. I climbed out, slammed the door with a force comparable to Brent’s, and kicked the sides with my hiking boots.

  Dudley watched through the truck window with his ears pulled back.

  I pumped my reddened hands when a bell tolled with the swing of the shop’s door. My hands in clubs, ready to serve up justice, I spotted Brent with a roll of silver Duct tape and a pair of oven mitts with “I heart Missouri” screen printed onto them.

  “That’s not gonna work,” I snarled.

  “It is merely ceremonial,” his voice rattled with fury. Stalking toward me, he ripped off a strip of the tape with his teeth.

  I knew I wasn’t in trouble of becoming his prisoner, but I took off anyway. I was on my stomach with a knee in my back within ten feet from the truck, my right cheek squashed against the concrete stained with gasoline and oil.

  As I writhed beneath him, he slipped the oven mitts on and taped them into a crude set of handcuffs fit for a Scrivener. He had my ankles bound before I could kick a body part he treasured. Brent was proficient and unnaturally quick.

  “Fuck you, asshole!” I growled.

  “Love it when you talk dirty.” He wrenched me from the gasoline-stained pavement with one hand.

  “Let me go.”

  “Never.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Our powers do not reside in our Deathmark alone, dear daughter. May you have the fortitude to see that when you’ve flourished into Masterhood.”

  —Master Scrivener Richard Dormier on his execution day, January 1st, 1987

  Brent held out a jelly jar. The campfire glistened like tawny crystal through the clear glass.

  I tucked my knees to my chest. I had vowed to keep my eyes on the fire or the truck or the campsite Brent had whipped up somewhere in the prairies of eastern Colorado— anything that wasn’t him. I wanted to go east. Brent wanted to go west.

  And here we were, a couple hundred miles from the Continental-fucking-Divide.

  My plan amounted to “make east with hell and fury on my ass.” In my plan, Brent would either have to keep pace and
join me, or risk getting burned like Nicholas Baird. But Brent was whip-smart. He’d know how to get around my fiery touch, which meant that I’d have to preempt him. Somehow.

  “I’m not thirsty,” I grumbled to my supposed friend.

  “Drink it. This is the last time I’ll ask nicely.”

  Mumbling curses, I kicked my legs straight and groaned. Clear liquid splashed around in the glass. I sniffed what was inside and gagged.

  “Bleh. What is it?”

  “Moonshine.”

  The fumes made my eyes water.

  “It happens to the best of us, Ollie. We wig out and want to run back to our mommies. This isn’t a happy life we’re living, but it’ll get easier as long as you stay focused and have a drink.”

  “I don’t want to run home to Mommy because I’m scared. I have to go home to stop Marin from sending Mama and Papa to Erebus. There’s a big difference, Bunyan.” I whiffed the moonshine again, and it didn’t seem quite so bad the second time around. But it was still revolting.

  “I told you, the situation with Lorelei and Stone is a trap.”

  “How do you know? Did you read Marin’s mind?”

  “I know Marin. If he banishes them, he has no leverage over you, and right now, that leverage is all he has. Your position is better than you think.”

  I sighed, flaring my nostrils.

  He pointed to the moonshine. “Do yourself a favor. Suck that down. You’ll be higher than a kite in minutes.”

  “Why do you want me higher than a kite?”

  “You need to relax, because you could go nuclear if you keep up this anger.”

  “Isn’t that a good thing?”

  “It’s only good when it serves a purpose, like melting bad guys.”

  I was gripping wrath with all I had, but looking at Brent made this difficult. Anyone could understand that, in his mind, he was protecting me from myself. His intentions were sweet. His execution was callous.

  Still, drinking moonshine would soothe the anxiety forming a cancerous knot inside of me. I needed relief, if only for an hour or so.