18. Clay
18
Clay
I was stupid. So so stupid. But I needed a soul. And the souls need me. Whenever someone passes on without a Reaper to help them, I feel their pain in the void until they fade into nothing. It’s torture when I could be there to help them, to sever them from the mortal plane, and let them drift into the after in peace.
So when I heard a child, a child , begging for release from the world, what was I to do? Allow him to wander the void? No, of course not. I had to help him.
Entering the void, I seek out the boy’s life force and find him right where his body lay, staring at it through the grey filter in the void. He looks at me sadly as the chest on his body rises and falls in staggered breaths.
“I’m dying,” he says quietly. His voice is so small and delicate that I can’t help but want to wrap my arm around his shoulder and pull him into me. My hands ache with the desire to comfort him. “Why am I still here if I’m dying?”
“You need a Reaper,” I tell him quietly. “Do you know what a Reaper is?”
“A supernatural,” he says, stepping away from me. “A death one. You’ll kill me.”
“You’re already dying,” I say softly. “What’s your name?”
“Liam,” he whispers. “I’m an Authentic.”
“I figured,” I chuckle. “Even Authentics need my services at some point.”
He shakes his head, eyes never leaving where his body lies in his bedroom, fevered and shutting down. “I don’t want to die.”
“It’s really unfair,” I admit, stepping closer to him and squatting so I’m looking him in the eyes. “You shouldn’t have to die this young. But I can’t stop it. I can only make it easier.”
“What do you mean? What does a Reaper do?”
“You’re here in the void because it’s your time to die. Yet your soul is still connected to your body. Without your soul, your body dies. But your body is trying to die with the soul still attached, so everything is trapped.” He scrunches his nose in confusion at my words.
He’s a cute kid, no more than seven, with curly brown hair and hazel eyes. If I had to guess, I would say cancer is taking him. It’s more and more common with Authentics these days to watch them pass because of the disease. I have my theories of why, but the how isn’t my strong suit.
What is, though, is the passage to death.
“How do you untrap me?” Liam asks.
I give him a small, sad smile. “I need to go sever your soul from your body. It will allow your body to rest and your soul to pass on.”
“Will it hurt?” Looking down at him, I see the fear swimming in the tears that brim his eyes. “I don’t want to hurt anymore.”
“It won’t hurt,” I say quietly. “You’ll stay here. You can watch me. I may look a little scary, but that’s only my Reaper form. It’s still me.” I give him an awkward little wave. “I’m Clay.”
“That’s not a scary name.”
“It’s not. I’m not a scary guy. I’m just trying to help people.”
He steps closer to his body, looking down at where he lies, so still in the bed. “You’ll help me?”
“I will. You can watch, but remember, I may look a little scary. It won’t hurt you or your body, though.” He nods and steps closer to his body, watching expectantly.
Closing my eyes, I inhale deeply and begin transforming into the form that allows me to reap souls. If others knew we were essentially shifters, they wouldn’t be so afraid of us in our everyday lives, but the only beings who know have no one to tell. My fingers elongate, growing extra knuckles and curling under with the weight of long, curved nails. They’re black and shaped like scythes, which I imagine is where the myth came from.
My hair grows and transforms into a black hood that plunges my face into darkness, hiding the monstrous teeth and hollow features that are a twisted perversion of my own. Shadows burst from the chasm in my chest and swirl around me, connecting to the hood and cloaking my body in darkness. The only visible part of me are my hands sticking out under the edge of the cloak.
Liam shakes next to me but doesn’t scream or run. I don’t risk looking at him, not wanting him to see my glowing yellow eyes. “I’ll be right back,” I say, my voice deeper and more resonant than before. It startled me the first time I heard myself speak in this form, so I cannot imagine how Liam will react. I don’t talk much when I reap.
I slip out of the void, looking around the boy’s bedroom and listening to make sure no one is coming in. Unfortunately, I am visible and vulnerable while reaping. I bend over his bed and extend my nails, hovering over his figure. This close, I can see the shimmering blue strands of his soul woven with the red ones from his body, and I begin to gently untangle them with my nails.
Every piece I unravel is a memory of Liam’s, and as I work, I live his life, feeling the love and warmth from his parents and pretending for merely a moment that it is from my own. I can feel them burning a path from my heart down my torso, stopping at my hip as the memories threaten to overwhelm me.
At the last strand, the door bangs open, and a female screams. “A Reaper!” she shouts. “Leave my baby alone, you monster! Honey, call the authorities!” I look up, locking eyes with her, and she whimpers at what she sees.
I know, I’m a monster.
But this is who I am. I can’t change it.
I’m doing the right thing.
Why can’t they see it? Why can’t they see that I don’t want to be a monster but sometimes a monster is needed?
If I have to be hated and feared so a little boy can move on and have a happy afterlife, I will.
I’ll sacrifice my own comfort for his every day.
I free the last strand tethering his soul and throw myself back into the void in time to see his chest stop moving and listen to his mother wail when she realizes he is gone. Liam cries beside me, reaching for his mother, trying to leave.
But there is nowhere to go but the after, now.
Children have blue souls. There is a special place in the after for them, where they can live the lives they were meant to. Their threads hurt me the most because they were not meant to be untangled so early, but they’re also the shortest.
My flesh carries the memories of every soul I have reaped, spiraling out from the black chasm where my heart should be. Short and blue for children, shimmering gold for those who lived honorable lives, and brutal, jagged black for those who didn’t.
I will carry Liam with me forever in the blue that is now permanently branded into my mortal flesh.
I guide him on his way, nearly unable to handle his sad hiccups. He looks over his shoulder at me as he fades out and gives me a small, tentative wave.
The authorities burst into his bedroom, and the mom begins describing me. My chest seizes.
I am in big trouble.
I throw myself back to the Academy, trying to figure out how I can make an alibi for myself. There aren’t many Reapers in the area, and with this being a child, there is no doubt that they’ll want to interview us all.
That’s how I find myself in the forest in front of a startled Stella. “I’m sorry, Stella, but I’m in trouble. I need your help.”
“What’s going on?”
“I had to reap a child, and the mother caught me. I’m afraid they’ll come knocking for all the Reapers to see who did it. And there aren’t that many of us.” I pace, running my hands through my hair frantically. I’ve long since shed my reaper form, back to my normal body and clothes, and I couldn’t be more grateful.
What would Stella say if she saw me like that?
“Did the child need it?” she says quietly. “Was it their time to go?”
“How could you ask me that?” It would hurt less if she slapped me across the face. “You think I would kill a child?”
“No, of course not,” she says, stepping forward with her hands out. I take a few steps back, shaking my head. “Clay, that’s not what I meant.”
“It is what you meant!”
I thought she was better than this.
I thought she understood me.
She thinks of me like all the others do.
I’m just a monster who can’t be controlled.
“What I meant was, do you think the parents saw the child declining enough that it could be explained away as a grief hallucination? That they think they saw a Reaper because they were having trouble accepting it was his time to go?”
I don’t think that’s what she meant, though.
She thinks I’m a monster like the rest of them.
I don’t know why I thought she’d be any different.
Why would I feel so drawn to her that I sought her out for safety in the void if she thinks of me like this? If she thinks I can just kill a child because I want to?
My pacing picks up, my hands pulling at my hair as I chew my lower lip, my mind swirling with grief. Grief for the little boy who lost his life too early, grief for the family that lost their child, and grief for me.
Because I’ve lost Stella.
Before I even had her.
Before I even had the chance to figure out what we could be.
What she is to me.
She thinks I’m a monster, just like everyone else.
And she’s right, of course.
I am a monster.
Take one look at me in my Reaper form, and it’s clear I am the stuff of nightmares.
Even outside of that form, I wear the evidence on my flesh.
Of course I would lose her.
Strong hands grab me by the shoulders, yanking me from my pacing, and soft lips touch mine. Warm, gentle lips push into mine, and a tongue traces between my lips, urging me to separate them. My mind empties, and my body stills as I lean forward into Stella’s kiss.
Stella’s kiss.
She’s kissing me?
She’s kissing me!
I slide my hands around her waist, pulling her body close to mine, feeling her hips press against my own. After a few moments that feel like too much and not enough, she pulls away, looking into my eyes. Her lips shine with moisture in the darkness, and her brown eyes are basically black in the moonlight.
“You were spiraling,” she says softly. “I wanted to bring you back down.”
“I…” I swallow, unsure how to explain that that was my first kiss.
That so few people want to touch me, even casually, that she’s the only person who has ever touched me like that.
She holds a hand up. “You don’t need to explain. I understand now how my wording was harmful. I know you, Clay. I know your heart.” She taps the black chasm that should hold the organ. “You are pure and good. I don’t want you to think anything else.” Stella leans her head against my chest, her nose tickling my collarbone. “Now, what do you need from me?”
“An alibi,” I say, breathlessly. “I need to be able to say I was with you all evening.”
“Are they going to believe me?” She sounds afraid. For me? No, it can’t be.
“You’re a Valkyrie. A spirit of valor and honor. I don’t think they’ll expect you to lie for a Reaper.”
“Quit saying Reaper like it’s a bad thing, Clay.” She looks at me, and I crane my neck awkwardly to see her. “You’re doing a good thing when you help people pass on peacefully.”
“Too bad that’s not how everyone else sees it,” I mutter.
Her hand touches my cheek, and she steps back enough to press her forehead to mine. “Then I’ll see it enough for all of them.”