The Reaper's Kiss

by Abigail Baker

  Behind the counter, a busty woman in a pink uniform, with blonde hair pinned into curls and brows arched in black pencil invited me with a warm smile to come and sit. I noted the woman’s nametag from across the diner—Clover. She was the one who had dashed from the window.

  I strode to the counter with my head down. “Coffee to go, please.”

  “To go?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “This ain’t downtown Buffalo, honey. We don’t have those paper cups like Starbucks. We do make a fine pot of coffee.” A baby pink porcelain mug was flipped over and filled to the brim before I could protest. “Cream?”

  When she poured the perfect amount of milk to turn the coffee a honey brown, just as Eve had always done, I halted my retreat. I put a finger to the lotus pendant. Eve. Mama and Papa. They needed me.

  “Caffeine keeps me going on quiet nights like this,” Clover said, unobservant of me inching away though I so badly wanted to snatch the mug and fly like the wind. “We have a lot of quiet nights now that everyone goes to IHOP next door. Most people who come in here are trying to avoid the crowd. What brings you here so late?”

  She lowered the carafe to the counter. I turned toward the door.

  “You… You aren’t going back to Québec, are you? The Watchmen are looking for you there. You won’t get far. Best you stay away.”

  I stopped. A surge of heat rushed into my hands. I looked over my shoulder at Clover. “What did you say?”

  Her smile was replaced with wide-eyes when I slowly stalked toward her. Good. She knew she pushed too hard. “It’s that… I recognize you under those glasses. It’s your mouth. It turns down so prettily. Just like it does in your pictures on TV.”

  I scoped out the lay of the land again. No watchmen appeared from a dark corner to slap me with an arrest warrant. No white vans pulled into the gravel parking lot. It was a muted television hanging from the ceiling to Clover’s right that sickened me.

  My face—and freckles—were on it.

  “Shit!” I stomped my foot.

  “Oh, dear!” She swung her full hips around the countertop and hustled toward me. “Please, don’t go. You’re safe here. No need to get upset.”

  “Stay back.” I threw out my ruby hands. “I can mark you if I want.”

  “I know. Everyone knows.” Her pink and black Skechers left streaks on the checkered tile when she skidded to a stop. “I’m on your side. We’ve been looking for you.”

  “We?”

  On the television over her shoulder, there was a picture of me at Mama’s niece’s wedding that then scrolled to my visit to Montreal for my birthday, hiking at Gaspe Peninsula months ago, and at Salon de Tatouage with Gerard. It was a goddamn marquee of my life.

  I snapped back to Clover. “Are you an undercover Watchman?”

  “Heavens, no. I’m not a loyalist.” Her eyes were glued to my fiery red hands. “I was given a message by a rebel cell out of Kentucky to be on the lookout for you, that we should help you if we find you.”

  I lowered my arms a little. “You’re a rebel?”

  “My whole life,” Clover touted. “My sister, Violet was also a rebel.”

  My butt was an inch from the barstool when I stopped and said, “Violet Magby?”

  Clover looked away, at the floor.

  Violet had been executed for failing to meet her soul quota. But more importantly, she was believed to be part of a rebel cell.

  “The Sisters Café. You and Violet are the Sisters,” I said as an afterthought. “I’m so sorry.” I didn’t know what else to say. Sorry didn’t feel sufficient.

  “Violet went down with pride.” That sounded as if she wasn’t convinced of it yet.

  Clover’s raised eyebrows made her look sympathetic and sad for her sister, but there was a trace of grit that spoke to her want for revenge. I was facing a true rebel, one to replace the one who had fallen.

  Rebellion is systemic. One day it would take over Styx.

  One day was not soon enough to save me.

  “You’re the top rebel,” she said. “Public enemy number one. Marin has every Watchman from here to California looking for you. He doesn’t care if we commit one of his offenses because he’s so desperate. Reapers are using this as a free pass. They love you for it.”

  She slid the cup of coffee toward the edge of the counter like someone attempting to coax a wild animal to the peanuts in her outstretched hand. “Here. Have something to drink.”

  I settled down over the cup of coffee with its perfect amount of cream. Clover began to fill me in with what she knew of the various rebel cells scattered across the country as I sipped my favorite drink from the ghastly pink mug. The coffee was as delicious as Eve’s.

  “How many of these clubs are there?” I interrupted after twenty minutes of her chat about monthly meetings, the Hermes Harbinger blog, and a history of the rebel cells that had been around since the early 1950’s, after Scrivener Buddy Hennessey, Styx’s Godfather of Revolutionaries, was executed for terrorism.

  Had he not slipped up or slowed down, he would still be alive today. For all we knew, Buddy Hennessey could have deposed Head Reaper Marin. And he had been called a terrorist, like me. He was our Guy Fawkes.

  What did that make Olivia Dormier then?

  “Marin is raiding Reaper communities looking for anyone who smells like a dissident.” Clover leaned over the counter and stuck out her round bottom.

  I would have given a lot to have a quarter of her backside to fill my jeans.

  “He’s trying to bring down the blog, too. That’s harder to regulate. No one knows who the author is, not even some of our top rebels. It’s a mystery. They’ll probably never find out. Did you know, yesterday the site reached five million visits? I don’t think there are five million Reapers. I’m telling you, Ollie, if you want to unite everyone, get on the television or Internet and make a plea. We’ll listen if you talk to us.”

  “You think that’s all the rebellion needs?” I was incredulous but curious.

  “The rebellion needs a voice. And you—”

  “They’re coming! I heard so over the radio scanner,” a man with an Indian accent yelled as he raced across the Café at us, swinging a spatula high in the air.

  I jumped and gave him a wild stare. He lowered his spatula.

  “I mean you no harm,” he said to me. Wearing a white apron covered in splotches of dried egg, the thin man was dark-skinned with a curly black beard and a navy blue turban.

  “Who’s coming, Azim?” Clover nudged.

  There was an engaging hope hidden behind the alarm in Azim’s round eyes. He stared at me as if he wanted to ask me a million questions, though there wasn’t time to even properly introduce himself. “The Watchmen…”

  Motherfucker.

  “Hide, Olivia,” Azim urged.

  Car headlights washed over our faces.

  “Hide behind the restaurant.” Azim tucked his spatula under his arm and took my hand. “We’ll take care of them.”

  Before I knew what he was doing, he had steered me to the rear of the restaurant, thrown open the backdoor to the café, and shoved me onto a square patio.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “One cup of powdered sugar (three cups of sugar if serving Reapers), One teaspoon each of baking soda, citric acid, and tartaric acid, Two tablespoons of Kool-Aid.

  And a pinch of extra sugar.”

  —Lorelei Balanchine’s Pixie Stix recipe

  Azim closed the steel door, shielding me from whatever was about to come down on the Sisters Café. I prickled with anxiety. I was exposed outside.

  I scanned the area to quiet my fears.

  My choices for hiding spots were a dark barricade of pine trees twenty feet away, a thirty-year-old beige Oldsmobile, and a Dumpster appropriate for discarding a dead body…or ten. I would have to make for the truck to escape.

  With my back flat against the brick façade, I padded toward a corner and inspected the parking lot. A famili
ar white utility van—the Watchmen’s paddy wagon—parked alongside the truck nixed any thought of running for the vehicle and peeling away.

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

  What I would have given for Brent’s company at the moment. If I hadn’t left him in such a hurry, I might have been in Buffalo and the Sisters Café with him by my side. He would know how to get from the rear of the café to the truck, and he’d do it without second-guessing himself like I was now.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Clover’s voice came muffled from the other side of the door. “We haven’t seen anyone. No one ever comes to the diner anymore. They go to IHOP. Have you met Darlene there? She’d help you find someone. She’s a nosy one.”

  I dove behind the Dumpster and rolled to a stop in a perfect, crouched position.

  Metal creaked as the café’s back door swung open.

  Careful not to kick up gravel, I stretched out so that I could watch from under the Dumpster, maintaining a pushup in case I had to spring into action—not that I had a clue what I’d do if it came to that. I spied Clover’s pink and black Skechers. She rolled one foot from side to side. Next to her, a pair of black wingtip shoes stepped confidently onto the little patio. A floodlight shined down on them, casting the shoes’ stitching in dramatic contrast.

  “See. Nothing. I told you,” Clover said. “Now, would you care for a slice of pie? We’re known for our pecan pie. Imitation sugar, of course. But you wouldn’t notice the…” Her drivel faded when the door clicked shut behind them.

  I let out a tense sigh and collapsed to the ground. From under the Dumpster, I spied the truck. I scrambled to my feet so my back was against the brick wall. I eyeballed my next move.

  This check revealed a second Watchman standing next to the van, hands at his sides. He wasn’t a towering Reaper, probably an inch or two taller than me.

  The punk wore skinny jeans, loafers, a brown leisure jacket, and was far too blasé to sport his scythe on the lapel of his jacket. Instead, it was hanging from his belt loop at a slant.

  “We haven’t seen anyone like that,” Clover shouted from inside the café.

  “We’ve been on her tracks for days. We know she passed through here.”

  “I haven’t seen her.”

  “Are you willing to testify in front of the Head Reaper that you haven’t?”

  A two-ton weight landed in my stomach. I’d have to make my move soon to keep Clover and Azim from trouble. I put my hip to the brick. My pocket crackled from a Pixie Stix.

  I ripped off the top of the wrapper with my teeth, took in one big breath and, out of the shadows, trotted across the gravel parking lot toward the truck. My heart thudded so hard, I feared it might crack my sternum.

  “Don’t lie to me,” shouted the Watchman inside the café.

  “We haven’t seen her.” Her voice was strained.

  “Hey, buddy.” I called out to the Watchman.

  Two gold dots locked on me before I sent a typhoon of sugar granules whizzing into the air. His eyes disappeared underneath an assault of sour apple Pixie dust. I rammed my shoulder into his chest, running full speed.

  The impact threw the waif Reaper into the side of the van as he cried out from the assault. My hands broke into a luminous ruby glow. One gold eye popped open when my fingers went for his throat. His Adam’s apple instantly collapsed, crushing his windpipe.

  “I’ll burn a Deathmark onto your neck if you fight me. Get in the van.”

  The café door hurled open and out ran his comrade.

  “Stop.” I barked. For some reason, he did. “I’ll burn through his neck if you come closer.”

  The punk’s wail and his singeing flesh backed up my warning.

  “You can’t fight two of us,” the black-suit said, hands raised.

  “I wouldn’t test me on that, Grimmie.”

  Clover and Azim peered through the foggy café window. I spotted Clover’s cheek trickling blood. Azim cupped his chin like his jaw might be broken.

  “Get in the back of the van. Both of you.”

  The suit didn’t move. But I wasn’t about to send him a personal, handwritten invitation.

  “I’ll mark him. Do you want his hastened death on your conscience? Because that’s what’ll happen if I mark him.”

  “No,” the suit growled.

  “Then start moving.”

  Giving me a chilling death-stare, he strode to the back doors of the van. I wrenched his ally to his feet, my grip scorching his throat. The suit slapped two hands on the door latch and yanked the van open. My boldness withered from what I saw inside.

  Five sets of eyes stared out at me from the dark van, terror in each watery gaze. I stared back at the five captives. To what lengths would Marin go to catch me?

  I saw brilliant shades of red. Wherever boldness went to hide, rage didn’t give a shit.

  “What were you going to do with them?” I demanded of the suit.

  “Take them to Head Reaper.” His voice was biting.

  “Then what?”

  The greenhorn Watchman howled. My hand had turned garnet. My fingers were set on eating away my captive’s throat exactly as maggots devour rotting flesh from a bloated carcass. I tightened my clasp.

  I wanted to watch my hand melt through the son of a bitch’s neck as I slowly decapitated him. But his squeal snapped me out of it. I loosened my grip enough to keep from choking him and asked of his companion, “What will Marin do with them?”

  “He’ll send them to Erebus.”

  “Why?”

  His eyes narrowed into citrine splinters. “Because of your rebellion.”

  I departed the Sisters Café in the white van. Locked in the back, the Watchmen were tied into statue-like immobility thanks to Azim’s talent with rope. They had divulged, after an interrogation, that Marin decreed anyone who had contact with me, or was under suspicion of having contact, were to be returned to Lethe for due discipline. In other words: banished.

  This left me terrified, evidenced by my death-grip on the steering wheel, and enraged, evidenced by said death-grip slowly melting away said steering wheel. Maybe my hands knew more than I cared to admit. Maybe they were ready to deal out justice, and I hadn’t quite caught up.

  I wasn’t sure if hunting Stygians was how Marin treated every rebel or if I had something extra special on other insurgents. All I was certain of was that I had sorely underestimated him.

  He either knew my weakness, or he was damn lucky. I had lived long enough to prepare myself for what he would do to me alone. I couldn’t watch those around me become his victims, too. I had helped snuff out enough souls. Too long I had slaved to Marin’s megalomania.

  No more.

  I had left the five prisoners at the Sisters Café with a promise from Clover that she would see them safely to their homes straight away. I prayed I had left Clover and Azim with thoughts of a better world, because I was uncertain of it.

  Suppose if they held out hope, maybe hope would return to me as I continued on the last leg of my expedition into a version of hell on Earth.

  As I drove, the only source of companionship, aside from the gagged Watchmen groaning like two whining teenagers, was Marin’s arid voice over the radio.

  “I am well aware of the unrest that runs through Styx today. I say to you, be patient. I seek balance in these troubling times. I can only achieve balance with your assistance.”

  “Too little, too late, jackass,” I groaned.

  From the back of the van came muffled chirps.

  “What’s that?” I asked, checking my prisoners in the mirror. “You’ve gotta pee?”

  I jerked the wheel to the right. The Watchmen slammed against the side of the van and then hit the floor in a no-contact equivalent of a face-buster.

  Papa would be proud of that one.

  “In other news, fugitive rebel Master Scrivener and possible HermesHarbinger.com author, Olivia ‘Ollie’ Iris Dormier is still on the loose. Authorities have picked up on
leads in the American states of Kentucky, Missouri, and now New York. It is only a matter of time until this terrorist will be caught and disciplined. Be patient, fellow Stygians.”

  The brief instant between the total darkness of night and the soul-cloudy dawn over Québec City was sacred to me. The city’s stratified buildings, old and new, were stacked alongside the Saint Lawrence River as if rising to kiss the souls flowing over the crests of Levis and the Isle of Orleans.

  This daybreak would’ve been beautiful if I weren’t driving east on Autoroute 40 in a Stygian paddy wagon with two baddies in the back, and a steering wheel melted down to the metal ring.

  The view of Québec reminded me of how much I’d missed the home I had spent a lifetime longing to escape. I had been gone a few days, and yet the city looked vibrant. Flowerbeds of tulips and English ivy sprouted life. I wove through the narrow streets of old-style buildings painted in a rainbow of colors. I passed by familiar places that had been landmarks on my daily walks to work. The Laundromat. The coffee shop.

  I put my hand to the lotus pendant.

  An Eve-less Le Nektar was open for business. My throat ached as I thought about her. I’d never again go into Le Nektar to find her standing behind the counter.

  Eve was gone.

  And the worst of it? I could not have saved her, because she had an enemy I could not have anticipated. Me. If Marin had his way, I’d soon follow in Eve’s path.

  Going straight to Erebus would be my well-deserved penance for failing my friend.

  Not far away from Le Nektar was the tattoo parlor I had called home for years. The lights were low; a “Closed” sign hung in the window. Everything looked at a standstill from my drive-by.

  I had thought to run straight for Mama and Papa’s apartment. I was sure I’d find Watchmen there who’d lead me to Head Reaper Marin. But first, a little surprise for Marin—the Interceptor stowed inside my backpack. To put it to use, however, I needed tools and a self-taught crash course in overcoming my fear of heights.