by S. C. Green
The sides of his mouth curled up into an even wider smirk. “Well, that sounded heartfelt. What’s the hurry? What if I wanted to take you to dinner?”
“I’m not hungry.” As if on cue, my stomach chose that moment to rumble loudly.
“I can tell.” He leaned forward, those icy eyes scrolling down my body, taking in every inch of me. “Don’t you want to know how I found you in here?”
“You’re a Reaper, aren’t you? I’m sure you have your ways.”
“Even the Reapers didn’t know this tunnel existed. There are a lot of secrets in the Rim we have yet to penetrate.”
The way he said that word, so throaty, so forcefully. It was hot as hell. Damnit. It must have been too long since I’d had a good shag if I was melting into a puddle over a Reaper.
“I saw you climb in here, so I followed you,” he continued. “I’ve been watching you, Sydney.”
He knows my name? He’s been following me?
I remembered the bird I’d seen perched on the edge of the building when we’d first been let off the bus. There were ravens all over the city, always hanging out close to the streets to feast on the husks before they were sucked away in the lacunamatics. Goddamnit, I hadn’t even thought that bird might have been a Reaper. Fucking idiot. That mistake had cost me my one chance for escape.
The Reaper must have seen my trepidation written on my face, because he took a step toward me and smiled. “Oh, yes. I know your name. I know a lot about you. I watched you touch the warden, and seconds later you keyed in the correct security code.”
Fuck.
“So you’re here to arrest me again,” I said. My heart hammered against my chest. If I went back to the prison and this Reaper told them what he’d seen me do, it would be straight to the high security ward for me. I’d managed to keep my power a secret from practically everyone, even the crime families for whom I usually worked. But if the wardens found out … I’d never have another chance for freedom.
And Diana … I didn’t even want to think about what would become of her.
“I don’t want to arrest you, Sydney. I want to hire you.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m offering you a job. The work is hard, and the pay is shit. There’s no pay, in fact, just a roof over your head and food, if you want it.”
I narrowed my eyes, wishing I could peel back his layers to see any hidden lies. “You’re serious.”
“As serious as a dead ghoul.” He kicked his foot through the pile of wraith dust at his feet. “Accept my terms and come with me to the Compound now. Or I can march you back to the wardens and tell them how you escaped.”
I balled my hands into fists. “So I don’t really have a choice.”
The Reaper gave me that sexy, cat-ate-the-canary smirk again. “There’s always a choice.”
Not really. Not when it came to Diana. “What are the terms?”
He held up his hand and ticked them off on his long fingers. “One, you have to accept the job without knowing what it entails. Two, you are forbidden to go back to any of your current clients. You work for me, and only for me. And three, you act under my orders, and only my orders.”
I stared back over my shoulder. A faint shaft of light illuminated the outline of the tunnel entrance. Beyond it, the wardens were still out there, searching for me. I didn’t want to go with the Reaper. I couldn’t trust him, even though he was hot enough to eat. But the alternative was going back to prison, and I couldn’t abide that.
“Fine,” I spat the word through gritted teeth. “I’ll take the job. But on one condition.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “You think you’re in a position to be naming conditions?”
“Probably not, but I am all the same.” I stepped forward, unease swimming through my gut. I had to trust this guy, and I hated it, but it was the only way. “There’s a girl named Diana. She’s twelve, and she lives in flat 5 on 22 Crabtree Lane. She’s coming with us to the Compound.”
The Reaper looked me up and down, a skeptical twist on his sexy mouth. “Your daughter?”
I could almost hear him appraising my body, and it lit me up inside. Then his words sank in. He thought Diana was my daughter.
I wish.
Clearing my throat, I shook my head. “Sorry to disappoint you. She’s a friend, and she’s been very sick. Some of your fancy Reaper medicine might be just what she needs. That’s my condition. Either we both come, or neither of us.”
“I accept your terms,” he said and held out his hand.
I stared down at it in equal parts shock and awe. That was easy. Probably too easy. Was I really doing this? Was I really striking a bargain with the world’s hottest Reaper?
“Do we have a deal?” he asked.
Hesitantly, I grabbed his hand and shook it. Its warmth raced down my arm. His touch stirred something inside me, but I couldn’t explain what. It had been a long time since I’d extended a hand to anyone in this city, apart from Diana.
“Yeah,” I said. “We have a deal.”
“Come with me to the Compound. I’ll see to it Diana arrives there safely.”
When he released my hand, I blinked down at it and swallowed the urge to retract our deal. I still wasn’t sure about trusting this Reaper, but if this could help Diana, then I had to at least try. “You know my name. What’s yours?”
“Alain,” he said, so low it was practically a whisper. “You can call me Alain.”
With that, he stepped over the dusty remains of the second wraith, his boots covered in a thin, grey layer. I took a deep breath, and with slow, unsure steps, I followed him into the gloom, not certain if I’d managed to save Diana’s life, or doom us both.
2
We exited the tunnel not far from my old stomping ground of Hellsgate. The real name of the suburb was Heavensgate, but since it was one of the most notorious suburbs on the Rim, and one whole edge of it butted against the swirling grey energy field that kept us all imprisoned inside the city, the residents felt it deserved a name more befitting its true colours.
After so long walking in the gloomy tunnel, the dull grey of the city seemed uncommonly bright. I squinted at the streets around me as I followed Alain, trying to get my bearings. I expected us to head toward Crabtree Lane to pick up Diana, but he waved me on in the opposite direction.
“We had a deal,” I reminded him, hanging back as he turned down a narrow alley.
“Will you relax for a minute? I know what I’m doing.”
I followed Alain down the alley. Several people milled around outside a black door, likely the entrance to an illegal drinking hole. One glance at Alain, and they scattered. Reapers weren’t exactly common in the Rim, and they definitely weren’t well liked.
If Alain noticed the sudden exodus, he didn’t acknowledge it. He simply walked up to the door, pushed it open, and dragged me inside.
It took my eyes a few moments to adjust to the gloomy interior. It was darker inside than even the tunnel had been. The only light in here came from a grimy window high on the opposite wall. Several men slumped over tables pushed against the wall, their hands clinging to filthy glasses of a muddy liquid that was likely the source of a foul sour smell. The bartender— most likely the brewer of whatever dreck was in the glasses—stood behind his bar to the right, his beefy arms slamming against the countertop as he filled two pints and shoved them toward two patrons. When he noticed Alain and I standing in the door, his eyes narrowed.
“You again,” he snarled to Alain.
You again? I elbowed Alain. “I didn’t know Reapers frequented illegal beer halls in the Rim.”
He glared at me, then cut his gaze to the bartender. “I’ve come for my package.”
Wordlessly, the man bent down behind the bar and placed a stack of clothing on the counter. Alain opened his jacket and reached inside, eyeing the man’s every move. The bartender stepped back, his hands raised, but all Alain pulled out was a package of cigarettes. He set them down on the counter, then pushed the cloth
es into my arms.
“There’s a storage room out back. You can change there. Hurry,” he said. “Please.”
The storage room was less of a room and more of a crawl space filled with sour-smelling barrels, but I managed to squeeze inside. I tugged off my prison uniform and pulled on the faded black jeans, black t-shirt, and leather jacket. How had Alain arranged for these clothes to be here? He knew my size, and he knew we’d end up in the Rim. He’d clearly been planning this for a long time. How long had he been watching me? And just what was this work he wanted me to do?
“I see I got your size right,” Alain commented when I emerged sans prison clothes. Not a single patron in the bar looked up, although all conversation had ceased. Alain’s eyes flicked over my body again.
“The jeans are a little big,” I shot back, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of knowing I was pleased he’d paid such close attention to my body. “They’re sliding down my arse.”
“Well, it was just a guess. Besides, you have been in jail for three months. I think you’re probably a little malnourished. We can soon fix that.”
I handed him the balled up overalls, and he tossed them to the bartender.
“Dispose of those, would you?” he called out, sliding another packet of cigarettes across the bar.
The bartender nodded, not saying a word.
With a flutter of his trenchcoat, Alain was out in the empty alley again, striding away.
I jogged after him. “Hey, when are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
He held his finger to his lips, then stuck it inside his mouth and whistled. The sound was strange, not quite like a human whistle—sharp and shrill, but kind of hollow. I followed his gaze to the grey sky, not certain what to expect.
Two ravens emerged from the edge of the building, fluttering down to land on Alain’s shoulder. He bent his head toward one and whispered something to it. The crow tapped his shoulder with its beak twice, then they both flew away.
“They’ll take care of your friend,” Alain said. “Now, let’s go. I don’t want to be here any longer than required. Someone might recognise either of us, and that could ruin everything.”
I had to jog to keep up with his long-legged stride. He led me through a maze of back alleys, side-streets, and abandoned buildings. He seemed to know the area even better than I did. Or maybe it was pure instinct, leading him back to his roost.
I didn’t have to ask him where we were going. I figured it out. We were heading in the direction of the Compound.
The Compound was the headquarters for the Reapers. It was located in the suburb of Lonsdale—not quite part of the Rim, but bordering it. The building and grounds covered one whole city block and had originally been built as a monastery, but for nearly eighty years during the 19th century it was used as an asylum for mentally damaged young women. Of course, there hadn’t been much need for those in the last hundred years, although personally I could think of several people who might be improved by a little electroshock therapy. Not just women, either.
Before the city had been closed off by the dome, the building had been repurposed as a nightclub, a paintball arena, and an outsider art gallery. But after their original quarters were cut off outside the dome, it now belonged to the Reapers, and they protected it as though it held mountains of gold bullion or a harem of nubile women with questionable morals, which it could well have for all I knew. No one but Reapers went inside of their own accord. I’d heard tales in the Rim of people who were kidnapped on the street, taken inside, and never returned.
None of this made me particularly keen to pass beyond the grand Victorian facade. But if it would save Diana, I would do it.
We walked in silence, my boots clomping heavily against the cobbles, and Alain’s coat flapping around his legs.Curiosity tugged at me. The Reapers were so mysterious. They usually lived in complete isolation from humans, unknown to us all. But here in Petrified City it was hard to hide from the undead, so the Reapers became more of a police force. But still, they kept to themselves and no one really knew what they did or what powers they had. All I knew was that they were shapeshifters, and that I should never mess with one. But now that I was in business with Alain, I should probably know a little more about him.
“So, tell me about being a Reaper.” I said, stepping over a cracked curb.
He smirked. “What exactly do you want to know?”
“What do you do?”
“I ferry the souls of the recently departed to the entrance of the underworld.” Alain said matter-of-factly, as though he were talking about an office job.
“I know that, but how?”
“There’s a doorway between this world and the underworld. It exists all around us, but also, it is not accessible to all. The Reapers are the doorkeepers. In our raven form we can locate the souls of the dead, and we fly with them through the gate.”
“And what happens if you don’t?”
He slid me a sideways glance. “What do you mean?”
“What would happen if all the Reapers went on strike?”
“Then the souls of the dead wouldn’t know where to go. They would hang around in the void between the worlds for eternity, lost and formless. Instead of an afterlife filled with pleasures and laughter and long-lost pets, there would be only a deep, unending oblivion.”
“Sounds like a barrel of laughs. But riddle me this, who reaps the Reapers? What happens if one of you dies? Do you have like a shift rotation worked out?”
“Reapers can take ourselves to the underworld,” Alain said. “When we die, we revert back to our raven form, and our souls fly away to join their brothers and sisters in the sky.”
“So Reapers would never be in danger of being lost in the void?”
“Only if the doorway to the underworld was somehow shut to us,” Alain said. “And that would be a terrible thing. A human soul wouldn’t be aware of their presence in the void. But a Reaper would be aware of every moment. An eternity being trapped in oblivion, knowing that your true afterlife was just out of reach. The pain of it would be worse than dying a hundred times.”
“You should have been a poet.”
“And you should have been a detective.” He grinned. “But you can save your next question for later. We have arrived.”
He marched me right through the main gates of the Compound, nodding to the birds who stood sentry on the high stone pillars flanking the entrance. We passed through a neatly-tended outer garden, under a high archway, and into an inner courtyard. Rooms and hallways opened up onto the courtyard on all sides. Except for two long raised gardens sporting a variety of vegetables, the courtyard was completely empty, and all the doors were shut tight.
“Hurry.” Alain led me down a dark passage into another building surrounding a second, smaller courtyard—a cloister, where the monks would have lived and prayed. This courtyard had a stone fountain in the centre, the water rushing over a stone nymph’s bare breasts.
The city barely had enough water to sustain her dwindling population, and here the Reapers could afford to waste it in a fountain. Ridiculous.
Alain led me three floors up a staircase and down another dark hall. He threw open a door and gestured me inside. “These rooms are our sleeping quarters.”
The room was large, but sparse. The only furniture inside were an iron bed, a wooden stool holding a lamp and a stack of books, a chest at the end of the bed, and a wooden wardrobe. A grimy window looked down into the courtyard.
And in the bed was a figure—a twelve-year-old girl with a pale, sickly face and red hair tied in plaits on either side of her face. She turned her head toward us, and her face broke into a wide smile.
“Diana!” I rushed into the room and flung my arms around her tiny body. She felt so light, so frail, as though she might float away. My throat pulled tight at her familiar sunshine and maple smell.
“I missed you, Sydney.” Tears streamed down Diana’s cheeks. Her words dissolved into a coughing fit. She w
rapped her arms around my torso and held me tightly.
Blinking back my own tears, I sat back and stroked her face until her coughing subsided. I wasn’t sure if or when I would ever see her again, but now warmth swelled a lightness through my body at the sight of her. “I missed you more, pet.”
“They let me bring Blackie.” She pointed to the tiny black kitten curled asleep at her feet. “The tall man called him a flea circus, but he was very careful with him.”
“That’s good.” I patted Blackie on the head.
He rolled onto his stomach, his little feet kicking against my hand, his whole body rumbling with the force of his purr. I’d found the little guy in a dumpster behind the Hellsgate Speakeasy. How he’d survived on the streets without being petrified or eaten, I didn’t know. I’d given him to Diana a few days before I’d been arrested. She must’ve been caring for him all this time.
“Blackie has been keeping you company while I’ve been away?” I asked.
“He’s a good mouser. He brought me four in one day once.” She shuddered against me, another hawking cough rocking her tiny body. “There isn’t much meat on a mouse, but I managed.”
“She was in a bad state when we found her,” an unfamiliar voice said from the doorway. “I think we got to her just in time.”
I whirled around. Alain had moved into the room and perched himself on the end of the bed. Another man leaned against the doorframe, his black coat flapping around his ankles, and an enigmatic smile on his face.
“This is Dorien.” Alain stood and clapped the new man on his shoulder. “You can trust him.”
I nodded, although I would need to decide that for myself. It didn’t seem possible, but this Dorien was even taller than Alain. His features were harsher, his cheekbones sharp as blades, his eyes a deep, dark brown. His shoulders weren’t as broad as Alain’s, but he was clearly just as sculpted. He moved into the room, shrugging off his coat and revealing geodesic tattoos all down his arms.
I resisted the urge to lick my lips. I’d never seen Reapers up close before. Were they all so hot?
“You brought her here?” I asked him, then suddenly I understood. “You were the raven we saw earlier, in the alley outside that bar?”
