Reaping Willow

by D. N. Hoxa

  I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I knew, I was lying on a soft couch with a baby blue blanket over me. I sat up way too fast and the room spun, contributing to the already massive headache I had.

  I was in a living room, not fully furnished but with a couch and a coffee table, and a large TV mounted on the wall. Behind the couch where I was lying was a hallway, and to its right was the kitchen, the cabinets black and shiny like they’d just been cleaned. I had no idea where I was until I heard a door open somewhere deeper in the hallway, and Adrian came out looking a thousand times better than I felt.

  I opened my mouth, but he raised his finger. “Don’t speak,” he said and rushed to the kitchen counter, where a glass of water and a pack of Advil lay waiting. He brought them to me and made me take two and drink the whole glass in one gulp.

  “Now, lie down again,” he ordered, and I did because sitting was really uncomfortable. It felt like my head was going to fall off my shoulders, and that’s even before I remembered what had happened to make me drink until I passed out.

  “What time is it?” I asked. It hurt to even speak. Seriously, how much had I had?

  “Just after nine p.m,” Adrian said and sat on the couch by my feet. “How are you feeling?”

  “Like I’ve been struck by lightning,” I mumbled and raised two fingers. “Three times.”

  Adrian laughed. “We should do this at least once a week. You’re really funny when you’re drunk.”

  “No, thanks. I’m never drinking alcohol again. And I’m pretty funny sober, thank you very much.” I kicked him in the thigh because he was close enough and I didn’t have to move my foot very far. “What the hell happened? I don’t remember much.”

  “Hmm, let’s see,” he said. “You basically drank all the alcohol in that bar, threw up like it was your favorite thing to do, and then passed out until just now, all the while talking about angels.”

  My gut turned. “Angels?”

  “Oh, yeah. You kept telling me how you saw one flying in the sky.”

  Damn it. I wasn’t ready for him to think I was mentally ill just yet, so I lied. “I was just drunk. Really drunk.”

  “Oh, I know you were.” He looked at me like he expected me to ask what he meant.

  I wasn’t about to. “Good.”

  He told me anyway. “You’d never admit you like me when you’re sober.”

  Oh, God. I squeezed my eyes shut and took in a deep breath. Adrian laughed.

  “Knock it off. You’re hurting my head.” He didn’t care. “I was drunk, okay? So drunk I passed out. Of course I’m going to say things that aren’t true. I said I saw an angel, didn’t I?” Which, sadly, was true. But never mind the angel—I couldn’t believe I’d told him I liked him.

  “If it makes you feel any better, I told you I liked you, too. And I wasn’t even drunk,” Adrian said. He looked away from me, almost as if he was embarrassed. Damn him for making me want to smile.

  “Of course you do. It’s hard not to like me. I bet all that talk about demons and angels would turn anyone on,” I said, trying to play it for a joke, but my heart wasn’t into it.

  “Totally. You have no idea how exciting the prospect of dying a gruesome death and spending all eternity in hell is,” he said.

  “While you fantasize about all the ways you can die, can I use your bathroom? I need to shower real bad.” And my duffle bag was right there by the door. Thank God I’d brought clothes with me.

  “Sure. It’s the door at the end of the hallway,” he said and stood up. “Take your time.”

  Fuck, my head hurt. Just standing felt like slamming it against the wall repeatedly.

  “Hey, do your brothers know about this place?” He normally was very worried about them finding us, but he hadn’t mentioned them at all.

  “They have no idea. We’re safe here,” he said with a nod. “Unless you’re scared. I could come with you, you know.”

  “In your dreams, asshole,” I said and headed for the hallway.

  “Careful, Willow. My dreams have a nasty way of turning to reality.”

  Chills washed down my back, and they didn’t go away until the warm water covered my skin. The shower was small, but it didn’t matter. It felt like heaven to hide in there, away from all my problems. The sound of the running water calmed me down and actually eased my headache, and by the time I stepped out of it, I felt a hundred times better.

  That didn’t mean I looked better, though. Seriously, I looked like I hadn’t slept in weeks. The blue bags under my eyes were more purple now, and I could have been seeing things—again—but my cheeks looked more hollow than usual, not to mention the bruises that felt like they were now part of me forever. But how I looked didn’t matter. I got dressed with a fresh pair of clothes and left the bathroom without glancing at the mirror again.

  One look at Adrian’s face and I knew something was wrong. He didn’t try to hide his emotions at all, so it was an easy guess: he was pale as a ghost. He sat on the couch, looking down at the coffee table where a white envelope lay.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked, immediately putting the knives from my duffle back into the back of my waistband before tightening my belt to make sure they wouldn’t slip out.

  “Someone was at the door. They left this,” he said without meeting my eyes, pointing at the envelope.

  “What does it say?” I asked and sat beside him, but I didn’t dare touch it yet.

  “It’s an address.” Adrian took the envelope and handed it to me. I pulled out a small piece of paper. The handwriting was worse than a doctor’s, but I could make out the address and the word midnight.

  “You should have followed them,” I whispered as a thousand thoughts crossed my mind. Who had figured out where we were? How had they figured it out? Was it a demon? Adrian’s brothers? The Trappers?

  “I did. Nobody was there,” Adrian said. It was easy to see how worried he was—he had no joke for my wet hair.

  “We should go.” My phone said it was still ten pm. We had time to prepare.

  “It could be a trap,” Adrian said. “It could be my brothers.”

  “If it was them, why would they bother with a note? If they knew where we were, they would have come here themselves.” They’d come after me in my motel room. Why wouldn’t they come to Adrian’s apartment?

  “That’s what I thought, but we don’t know what they’re planning. What he’s telling them to do.” And by he, he meant the Devil. Goose bumps on my forearms.

  “Maybe it’s a demon,” I whispered.

  “What if it isn’t?”

  “Well, who else could it be?”

  Adrian smiled sarcastically. “If they are anyone we want to meet, they’d have knocked on the door and waited to see us, not leave a note and run.” He was right about that.

  “But we have to go.” Not knowing was going to make me go nuts.

  “No, we don’t. We could just leave this apartment and find someplace else to hide.”

  “Or we could go see who it is and deal with them accordingly.” My mind was already made up. I was going, whether he was coming or not. I just wished he would.

  “Willow, this isn’t the time to take stupid risks. We’re hiding here for a reason,” he said.

  “We’re not hiding. If we were, I wouldn’t have gotten drunk at a bar where everyone could see me, don’t you think?”

  Come to think of it, that had been stupid. Very stupid of me. Everyone could have seen me—including demons.

  “Yeah, and that’s the reason whoever brought this knew where we were. I should have never taken you to that bar. Fuck!” he shouted, pissing me off even more.

  “You didn’t take me anywhere. You don’t decide where I go or don’t go. You’re not my fucking dad!”

  “You’re right, I’m not. I can’t make you do anything, but I’m telling you, this is a bad idea,” he said through gritted teeth.

  I stood up. “Whoever sent that note could be following us,
and we’d never know. We won’t be safe until we see who it is. I’m going, Adrian.” I crumpled the paper and threw it on the table before making for the door.

  “Okay, wait!” he called before I could open it. “At least give me ten minutes. I could use a shower, too.”

  Relief covered me like it had no business doing. Since when had I learned to depend on somebody else? This whole thing was getting out of hand, fast. Half of me wished I could just leave while he was still in the bathroom and be done with it.

  But I didn’t want to. He was trying to help me. I understood why he was worried. Hell, I was worried, too, but I couldn’t just sit around and wait for whoever it was to find us. At least this way, I’d be prepared.

  Those ten minutes felt like a lifetime of internal battle, until Adrian finally came out of the bathroom, freshly clothed with a faded pair of jeans and a blue shirt that shouldn’t have made him look so goddamn handsome, even with the yellowing bruise on his cheek. Now, I was the one who wanted to comment about his wet hair. It looked even better on him than dry hair, and it wasn’t fair.

  Get your shit together, I yelled at myself in my head.

  “Ready?” I said, and before he answered, I opened the door. I was asking for trouble and I knew it. So why couldn’t I just walk away?

  The mysteries of the universe.

  Adrian’s car was parked right across the street from the apartment building. We were just two blocks away from Treat Yourself. The familiar street almost made me feel nostalgic.

  “What if it’s the Trappers?” he asked as we drove from Midtown to the Upper West Side. I was glad we were going to get to that address before midnight because I wanted to search the neighborhood, see what we were getting ourselves into.

  “I thought about that, too, but why would they go to all this trouble?”

  “To see you in action. Maybe they’re watching you and they’re actually giving you a target,” Adrian said.

  “If that’s the case, then we have nothing to worry about.” If the address led us to a demon, I could kill him and be done with it. Unfortunately for me, I had a feeling that things weren’t that simple.

  I found out why when we stopped at a red light.

  I rolled the window down to get some fresh air. The Advil and the shower had helped but I still felt like shit, and I needed to be able to focus if I was going to have to fight.

  A guy was sitting outside the grocery store to my right, smoking a cigarette, minding his own business. He was maybe five feet away from me, so I couldn’t tell what he was until his eyes met mine. I didn’t think too much of it, at first. We were right in front of him, so of course he was going to look at us. No harm there.

  Except suddenly, he was no longer interested in his cigarette. He threw it on the ground and slipped inside the grocery store in a rush. I turned away to see if the light had turned green yet. I couldn’t wait to get there already and see what this was all about. Through the corner of my eye, I saw a silhouette moving closer to the car.

  I turned back just in time to see the man who’d been smoking outside the store coming at us with a shotgun in his hands.

  “What the hell?” I whispered a second before I felt his energy. His darkness blew on my face like a breeze and consumed me until I felt his emptiness to my core. His eyes were glazed over, almost like he was high, and not a muscle on his face moved when he stopped two feet away from the car.

  Then, he raised his shotgun and aimed it directly at my face.

  “Go, go, go!” I shouted at Adrian.

  The tires of his car screeched when he hit the gas, just as the guy fired his shotgun. The sound made my heart skip a beat.

  “What the fuck!” shouted Adrian as he drove through the red light. Cars honked everywhere. I looked down at my body to make sure there wasn’t any blood. I couldn’t feel a bullet in me, but I’d been so sure that guy had caught me. He hadn’t, apparently, but we were about to be hit by at least one of the cars in the intersection. Another gunshot and I instinctively lowered my head. The back window of Adrian’s car shattered to pieces.

  “Faster!” I urged him, but the chaos of cars around us wouldn’t let him navigate that easily. People screamed at us, but Adrian never looked away from the windshield until we were finally driving ahead, away from the intersection.

  “What the hell was that?” asked Adrian, driving as fast as he could without crashing into another car.

  “That guy was smoking outside the store, and then suddenly he walked inside and brought out his shotgun,” I said in a rush. “He was like you.”

  “Like me?”

  “I mean, he made the deal, too. I could feel it on him.” He’d sold his soul, and now he was shooting at cars in the middle of Manhattan where everyone could see. Why?

  “How the hell did he know you?” Adrian asked. “Have you met him before?”

  I shook my head. “Never in my life.” I would have remembered.

  “Jesus Christ, he messed up my car!”

  “He almost got me, and you’re worried about your car?”

  “I told you this was a bad idea,” he said, and I was starting to think he was right. Maybe whoever had written that note knew where we’d be, so he sent his minions to get me. I’d be damned if I didn’t get to him first.

  “How much longer?” I asked, looking at the map on the dashboard screen.

  “Five more minutes,” he said. “But if—”

  Adrian suddenly jerked forward, his nose an inch away from the steering wheel. I, on the other hand, hit the dashboard with my right cheek. Somebody had hit us from behind, and neither of us had expected it.

  “Goddamn it!” Adrian hissed, slamming his hands on the steering wheel. “Stay in the car.” He opened the door and got out before I could think to speak. Like hell I was going to stay in the fucking car. Was he kidding?

  “Oh, man, I’m so sorry!” said someone while I took out my knives and opened the door. “I didn’t see you, I swear.”

  “You didn’t see me? I was right there!” Adrian spit, but he didn’t sound alarmed. Well, he sounded freaked out but not because somebody was trying to kill him.

  I let go of the breath I was holding. It had been an accident. Just a stupid accident, that’s all. Not exactly a surprise, considering how Adrian was driving. Maybe we drove through a red light again without realizing it.

  “I know, man. I’m sorry. Can we just settle this between us?” the guy said. He sounded exactly like a normal guy would in the situation. I put my knives away. No need to scare him—he was already panicked. I got out of the car, reminding myself to keep calm.

  The man was bald and had a beer belly like you wouldn’t believe. His red shirt was a size too small—you could see the skin of his lower stomach perfectly. He drove a white Audi, and he looked about ready to burst into tears.

  Also, he had no soul.

  “I swear, I didn’t see…” His voice trailed off when his eyes met mine.

  He saw me, and it was like the world stopped for a second. His darkness enveloped me, and no air reached my lungs until he broke eye contact. Suddenly, he turned around, opened the door and got in his car.

  “Hey, what are you doing?” Adrian said. A bad feeling settled in my gut.

  “Adrian, get in the car,” I said, slowly moving back to the passenger seat.

  “What?”

  The guy in the Audi was looking for something in the backseat. It was only a matter of time before he found it.

  “Get in the car!” I shouted and hopped in, slamming the door shut. Adrian followed me.

  “What the hell is going on?!”

  “Just drive!”

  I spun around in my seat to watch the guy step out of his car, a tire iron in his hand. Adrian hit the gas, and we flew forward before the guy could get to the passenger door. He swung his arm and the tire iron hit the trunk of the car, causing Adrian to shout in frustration. The road ahead was open, thank God, but there were other cars there as well.

&nb
sp; “What the hell is happening?” Adrian said, and by some miracle, I thought I had an answer.

  “He was the same as the guy with the shotgun.” I took off my jacket. My duffle bag was still in Adrian’s apartment, which had been a mistake, so I had no other clothes with me. I took off my black tank top, too.

  “What—what are you doing?” Adrian said, his voice suddenly very calm.

  “I’m hiding my face.” I wrapped the shirt around my head as well as I could, leaving only the eyes uncovered. Then, I put the jacket back on and zipped it all the way. It wasn’t ideal—leather against naked skin—but it would have to do.

  “Why are you covering your face?”

  “Because those guys were normal before they saw me.”

  Yes, I realized how that sounded, but it made perfect sense. That man at the grocery store smoking his cigar was just chilling before his eyes met mine. The bald guy’s only concern had been to settle the crash with Adrian without calling the police—right until he saw my face.

  Adrian didn’t doubt my words. “Fuck,” he said under his breath. “How’s that possible?”

  “No idea, but both those men were soulless. That can’t be a coincidence.”

  Adrian paused for a moment. “Soulless?” he whispered. “Like me?”

  “I can’t feel you,” I said because I didn’t want to have to tell him what I thought again. If he made that deal, he gave away his soul. That was how this business with the Devil worked.

  “Right,” he said bitterly. “We’re here.”

  He slowed the car down, his eyes moving from left to right fast, trying to see if someone was coming for us. His car was a mess. It was a miracle it still ran, but would it survive another crash?

  “I think it’s best if you stayed in the car. The address is right there.” He pointed ahead at a grey, three-story building. The ground floor was a closed wine shop, and the lights were out on the top floors, too.

  “Are you sure?” I asked because it didn’t look like a place where a demon would hang out.

  “Did you hear me?” Adrian said instead. “I really think it’s best if you stayed in the car and let me go check it out.”