The Reaper's Sacrifice

by Abigail Baker

  I spat the blood pooled in my throat. The gob of bloody mucus landed at his feet.

  He peered down at the offering and snickered. This next move would be his last, doing me in for good, if he had it his way. His deathblow would have to come now or come too late.

  Tonight would be my first lesson in melting Death. Hades knew that I had enough grit to blow wine country to kingdom come. Red, blue, and white lines shimmered beautifully over my exposed limbs. My heat was finally here to do my bidding.

  With two hands on the handle, I swung the katana as I had seen Papa swing a weapon at the carnival games when I was a child. The blade struck the Eidolon’s forehead, displaying a level of aim that I’d been unaware I had. Papa would be proud.

  But this was no time for celebration. The Reaper fell onto on his back when I threw my weight against him. His unhinged jaw of life-sucking doom retracted. I straddled his chest, sadistically grinning at my prey.

  Now, for the first time ever, I was the one staring down the beasts that Styx feared.

  I was their demon. I was their Death.

  “I’m gonna serve you up on toast, motherfucker!” My molten hands seized his thick neck. Bones and muscles writhed under my grasp. He clawed at my sides and thrashed his head with the sword wedged in his brow. In the reflection of the steel blade, I saw my face blanketed in red, eyes colored white just like Errol’s had been when he’d melted Pierre.

  My arms quivered from the energy spiraling into them. The convulsions expanded across my shoulders and chest, down my hips and my legs, into my toes, and then shot straight up to the crown of my head. The spasms grew in speed and intensity.

  My organs pulsated as my skin stretched so thin that the slightest fissure would cause an eruption. This was rage. Pure, cultivated by the paranormal genetics that made me a Scrivener. The organic gift was crude, and it was so concentrated that I worried I’d implode if I didn’t release it immediately. When the pulsating energy reached fever pitch, begging me to let it all go, I threw my head back and shrieked into the night, sure that Marin heard me way down in his protected hole underneath the earth.

  In a flash of white light, the katana lodged in the Eidolon’s head smacked to the ground. A surge of energy, a one-woman nuclear bomb, hurled everyone around me—Trivial or Eidolon—off of their feet. I had remembered when watching Errol’s explosion, how it felt soaring through the air as objects around me blew past like foliage missiles. I didn’t go anywhere this time. Everything about me was motionless, as rooted as my stance above my victim.

  My knees sank into the gelatinous remains of the Eidolon. There weren’t any bones left—they had melted, too. He was gone.

  There was no time to bask in what I had accomplished. I struggled to my feet, feeling as if I had sprinted fifty miles.

  Skating awkwardly on the Eidolon’s remains, I collected the katana, intent on continuing the fight until someone raised the white flag. I’d swing my weapon as I had done already. And I’d melt anyone who got in my goddamn…

  I collapsed to my hands and knees, wheezing. My head was whirling with visions of Trivials and Eidolons thrashing about, smacking against peach and pear trees in the orchard.

  Errol had been right. Summoning that level of energy was draining beyond minor fatigue.

  A pair of hands pulled me to stand.

  Chad’s eyes were swollen red. But in those eyes was a level of respect I had never seen from him. “Coulda left something for his family to bury, Scrivie.”

  “Eat shit.”

  “Come with me.”

  “Can’t walk,” I huffed as he latched onto me, giving me what little strength he had to help with my first, unsure steps.

  “Need your help.”

  “For what?” I couldn’t grasp how I could help with anything at present. Drooling from the corner of my mouth would’ve required more energy than I could provide. What could I do for Chad?

  “Follow my lead.” He bolted.

  I lifted the katana as best as I could, which was only slightly higher than a moment before, and stumbled over each stair of the patio. I would have a better chance of surviving if I made for the cellar with Nicodemus, but the urgency in Chad’s plea for aid wasn’t easily ignored. I had to help him, even if he did exasperate me and did deserve a long time in Erebus.

  When I reached the top of the stairs, breathless, thigh muscles quivering, I looked upon an Eidolon twice the size of any I had ever seen. Brent had been the most powerful Eidolon I had encountered. Had he not been my lover and friend, I would have not dared to go near him. But this one was larger by far. And he wasn’t my friend. Or lover. This shadowy phantasm looked pumped up on steroids. He couldn’t be an Eidolon alone.

  So was he Marin?

  “Called him Gizmo in Lethe,” Chad explained as I stood rigid, mouth hanging open.

  “Why do you need my help?” I honestly preferred not to know.

  “Matching. We need to do it now,” he said from the corner of his crooked mouth.

  “No. I mean, yes. I mean, not gonna let you…”

  The horror they called Gizmo turned his reddened gaze to the sky, looking up at the human souls floating above. He appeared to sneer at them as if he would open his jowls and draw them all into his lungs so he could send them straight to hell. Precisely when I gave an internal “hell no” and began hobbling vigorously toward the Manor, his attention locked on me like the scope of a military tank.

  Chad grabbed my hand, snatched the katana away, and dragged me past Trivials and other Eidolons, past body parts, deeper into the orchard. Where the strength to run came from, I did not know, but I didn’t care for the reason that Gizmo was close behind, intent on sucking our souls into his oversize, ghostly persona.

  “No Matching!” I screamed amidst our sprint. Matching, however it worked, started with Half-death, and that was something I never wanted to live through again. Ever. “I won’t do it.”

  “No choice, Scrivie.” Chad presented no further argument. I was intent on protesting further, but too soon felt a sensation that had become a distant memory, one that I had always associated with Brent because I had only experienced it with him. Iciness shot through me. One instant I was in control of my body, weak as it was, and the next I was trembling. Pain coiled itself tightly around my bones. I had been running hot since the beginning of this fight, but now I was freezing through and through, cold as Death.

  Whatever I may have experienced in Half-death with Brent, what I faced with Chad was far more excruciating. I was sure as the day was long that this was worse than anything Gizmo would throw at me. But then my vision cleared.

  Better said—our vision cleared.

  I was no longer a lone, hot-handed Scrivener. Chad was no longer an Eidolon with a flapping asshole for a mouth. However it happened, we were fused together—hot and cold, yin and yang—into what I could only assume was one being, one force. I didn’t know what the purpose of this tactic was. But the two of us fighting Gizmo seemed far more practical than one.

  “You can’t stop me, Matched or not, fool,” Gizmo hissed at us, the skull smiling in premature victory.

  Our fingers rolled over the katana handle. Our fingers? There was no argument between us about this subtle move. This happened as if we were individuals choosing to roll our fingers or not. In this action I understood something acutely important about Half-death. This maneuver was not just for dragging Stygians through stone fortifications and into the innards of Lethe, but for something far more significant.

  The metal blade of the katana glowed with scorching heat as it had when I was fighting moments ago. Yet our unified body was in shadow. Blackness cloaked us like we were Death himself, and the blade, curved and ruby red, was our scythe.

  Gizmo came at us.

  Our weapon cut through the air, a parry against Gizmo’s colossal weight crashing into us. Our bodies slipped ever so slightly from our Scrivener/Eidolon union before we snapped back together like magnets. In a distant corner of my b
rain, Chad uttered “Stay close” and “we can stop him.” What we were going to do to squelch Gizmo’s reign of terror was beyond me.

  One shove from us forced the enemy back and into the orchard. The leaves on the peach and pear trees rattled; the branches swung back and forth. We ran, full force, because this was our turn to make our strike on the beast. A swing of the fiery katana nailed Gizmo where I had struck the previous Eidolon, but the result wasn’t as fruitful. Gizmo’s mass was too much for one blow.

  The hit, however, was enough to give us time for more swings of our sword as we screeched in a united battle cry. The horrid Eidolon sound wasn’t any more pleasing on the inside than the outside, but the difference was in my eager participation. I wanted to scream. I wanted to rock the Earth off of its axis with my voice. When we howled together, it was a delightfully toxic sensation. I would have enjoyed shouting until everyone stopped fighting to listen.

  We went at Gizmo with the same force and determination as he ran at us.

  We collided. The earth quivered beneath us. Pear and peach trees fell victim to the skirmish. When I was sure we would defeat Gizmo with one more hit, he deflected our move, knocking the katana from our grip. He grabbed our throat, his skeletal face shrouded in triumph. Something had to be done. He had to be stopped, or we’d both wind up someplace we didn’t want to spend the rest of eternity.

  A solid, productive burn was what we needed to stop him. One hand, hot and in a tight fist, went for Gizmo’s chest. His reaction to the burn sent us airborne, our limbs flailing. I landed in a patch of green grass on my stomach. Across from me, Chad stared back, his face wrought with dismay.

  We were no longer Matched. We weren’t the Super Scrivener/Eidolon.

  “Run like hell, Scrivie.” He leaped to his feet.

  Not one to argue with such logic, I made for the Manor. The weak hope that Gizmo would go after someone else and not me died a quick death when the Reaper, the size of a small truck, made chase, screeching as if to announce my impending slaughter to his teammates.

  My pace quickened. My limp gave way to a jog and that into a sprint.

  The solarium doors would slow him down for sure. He wouldn’t fit. He was too tall. I darted through them.

  A sardonic growl followed by a crash of glass and splintering wood immediately disproved that theory.

  I darted in and out of groups tussling inside the sunroom. I ran hard for the corridor that fed into the foyer. Inside the safety of the wood-paneled hallway, I faced a decision—make for the library, or start shouting Hail Marys and give in. The choice was simple. I would go the basement, find Nicodemus, and sit and wait.

  But something snagged my ankle as I started toward the library doors. I was thrown off balance and fell on top of a Trivial whose throat was ripped out, his face frozen in a death scream. At his side, another Trivial, equally mauled, squeezed my arm as if my skin would lessen his misery.

  “Help me,” he cried as his flesh cooked where it touched me.

  Blood spattered on walls and ceilings, or on the face of another creature, was horrifying enough, but it was the plea for mercy in this Trivial’s eyes that struck me. This was what these Eidolons’ could inflict. And some seemed to enjoy it.

  Gizmo roared, and I shoved the Trivial’s hand away and stood. My legs carried me forward. Every step felt like I was running in place, like I was going nowhere even though my lungs and heart screamed otherwise.

  I’d stumbled into the three-story entrance hall when Gizmo’s icy hands clasped my shoulders and slammed me face-down to the floor. I shrieked loud enough to make my throat raw. This was it. This wicked, steroidal Grim Reaper would rip out my spinal column for his trophy. I would lose my legs or arms or head…or all of them.

  When I dared to look over my shoulder at Gizmo and the doom he was about to inflict upon me, I spotted a recognizable pair of blood red eyes, set with murderous resolve on Gizmo. He wasn’t Chad. He wasn’t Nicodemus.

  He was Brent.

  My Brent.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Everything carries me to you. As if everything that exists, aromas, lights, metals, were little boats that sail toward those isles of yours that wait for me.”

  —Pablo Neruda

  Brent Hume’s cloak of black spectral mist, which surrounded his Eidolon form, was distinctive to him alone, and I couldn’t forget it no matter how many times my mind was erased. As he and Gizmo fought, their mists intertwined, spiraling together. Brent’s prowess was on full display when he flung Gizmo across the foyer. The massive Eidolon struck a wall. Plaster cracked from his impact. The skull of a lion slid down and smacked Gizmo on the top of his head.

  “Run, Ollie!” Brent’s voice was thunderous, but the most beautiful sound to my ears. As wonderful as it was to hear him, as much as I yearned to run to him and pull him close forever, I wouldn’t retreat. We were a team years ago, and now was no different.

  I’d fight by his side. I’d die by his side.

  I clutched a metal goblet that had toppled from a display case. After a moment, it began to grow hot from my touch. Although not the best defense against potential doom, I whipped the goblet. The missile bonked Gizmo on the back of his head, giving Brent enough room to dodge Gizmo’s bruised-ego retaliation.

  Hardly thwarted by the goblet or Brent’s deflection, Gizmo pushed Brent into an inelegant stumble. My lover landed inches from me, nearly catching my scalding foot with his face.

  My heart fluttered as my eyes drank in the sight of my personal Reaper, the one I’d never stopped loving. His gray skin was pulled taut over his musculature. Those red eyes that I had grown to despise in other Eidolons soothed me in a way that only Brent’s could.

  “Get out of here, please.” His voice was thick with fatigue.

  Gizmo threw himself on top of Brent. My hero couldn’t move, not with the oversize fiend, twice his weight, bearing down on him. Gizmo’s jaws of death began their slow, premeditated attempt to drain Brent’s soul.

  But there was something that this beast didn’t consider when he’d taken on Brent. He’d indirectly taken on me, too. I would be damned if I’d let him destroy Brent in front of me, not while I still had some fight left in me.

  I put both blistering hands on the enemy—one hand over his eye and the other on his cheek—and I held on tight until smoke spiraled off of his leathery skin. With one swift movement, he tossed me away. I sailed in an arc and landed on my back, knocking the wind out of my lungs.

  Whatever made Gizmo so powerful, I worried that even Brent couldn’t stop him. The entire Wrightwick army would need to converge on the monster if Brent failed—if we failed.

  There was only one other option—find Errol. Provided that he hadn’t spent his own energy on his own battles, there was a chance that with the three of us working together, we’d succeed.

  I began to stand, intent on seeking help, when a yelp, sharp and unfamiliar, echoed inside the foyer. Brent collapsed. On his chest, two slashes in his gray skin poured out blood. Eidolons could be killed by Eidolons, and that hit looked lethal to me.

  Somehow I was on my feet in spite of my empty lungs. I went at Gizmo with all of the energy I could summon. One thwack from his hand and I lost my footing. I dropped to my knees, hands splayed out on the blood-spattered floor for balance. Every fiber in me tensed, prey awaiting the first bite from its predator.

  As I prepared for what would undoubtedly be an agonizing hit, someone rammed into Gizmo hard enough to stop him. I blinked in relief to see Murray the Trivial swinging my discarded katana from side to side. He bravely pushed the living nightmare back.

  With no time to breathe or pause in thanks, I crawled toward Brent, who was rapidly losing blood.

  “I have to get you out of here,” I said over the noise of Murray’s fight with Gizmo. “He’ll kill you.”

  “Ollie, go,” Brent urged. His face resembled a skull with a thin layer of flesh, and it contorted as he held back his emotions. Even so, I still saw pa
in written into his features.

  “Dormier!” Gizmo howled, his interest zeroed in on me. In one of his outstretched hands was Murray’s limp body, and in the other was the Trivial’s head, sprinkling blood onto the wood floor.

  “Go, go.” Brent shoved me back.

  This time I honored his request. Gizmo didn’t give a hoot about Brent anyway. His attention was set on me and ready for a kill.

  Fine. I’ll lure you out of here. Away from Brent.

  The idea came precisely when my feet moved to execute it. I sprinted through the front doors of Manor and onto the front lawn. Gizmo remained in hot pursuit.

  Outside, Trivials were holding back the less formidable Eidolons. Standing out among them was Errol, reddened and swarming with his own menacing ink. He looked back over the landscape of blood and limbs to face the monster that was chasing me.

  Errol leaped from the lip of the fountain and landed on Gizmo’s back.

  It was soon apparent that even Errol lacked sufficient energy to melt him. A thrash of Gizmo’s shoulder sent Errol flying. Landing with his arms and legs splayed out, Errol seemed uncertain of his next move.

  Gizmo was on me with an air of finality. He was in full sprint, two steps from attacking me, when he came to a sudden stop, his head thrown back and arms out as if someone had stabbed him between the shoulder blades.

  I held my stance, waiting, panting.

  In the light from Wrightwick’s windows, Gizmo’s head grew smaller, almost as if it were imploding. The rest of his oversize body followed the same surreal course. Smaller and smaller. And it was when he was half his size that I understood what was happening.

  Bleeding and weak, but determined, Brent had crawled to the front lawn and unhinged his skeletal jaw, his eyes alight in red fury. Gizmo stopped shrinking, and then his flesh and bones peeled from his body as Brent drew his life away. The process was slow, deliberate, and grew in passion as Gizmo faded into nothingness.

  Unlike a Scrivener whose nuclear reactor threw everything outward in a massive explosion, Brent drew everything—including me and everyone else—toward him as he sent Gizmo to his death.