Chapter Twelve
Grym
The shadows crept closer. I felt them at my back, closing in on us. I’d get a demerit soon and probably lose Elliot’s contract again. They would find him, and when they did, they’d leave him in Tech Duinn to waste away.
Elliot ran. From me. Not them. He might have been a runner in high school or even college. I couldn’t keep up with him, though I tried. I teleported twice just to get closer. The last thing I wanted was for them to find Elliot before I caught up to him.
We needed to bond. The sooner, the better for Elliot’s safety. But I’d already botched things. Chasing him down the sidewalk didn’t improve our chances. Bonding would tether us together. Whatever the Bureau did to one of us, they’d do to the other, too.
A car pulled up beside me. I recognized Cael’s vehicle, so I knew it was him even before he rolled down the window.
“Get in.” Cael kept pace with me.
I came around to the passenger side and got in the car. “Don’t come up on him. I don’t want to scare him any more than we already have.”
“Seatbelt.” Cael was like a big brother to all of us, which annoyed me. I hadn’t had anyone boss me around since I’d been a stable boy. Not even Morgana.
“I can’t die, Cael.”
“No, but a cop could pull us over, which would make us lose Elliot.” Cael was right. We didn’t need the delay. Any distance between Elliot and me was too much.
I pulled the belt around me and buckled it.
It was hard to stay off Elliot’s radar when he stopped running. When he bent over and clutched his side, I thought about going to him. The urge to soothe was overwhelming.
We stopped in the middle of the road.
Elliot glanced at us, then rolled his eyes and started walking. It took about ten minutes for him to stop holding his side before he finally let his arms relax, but that was only so he could flip us off.
It took another ten minutes of driving at a snail’s pace with our hazard lights on before he came our way.
Cael stopped the car and lowered the window as Elliot drew closer.
Elliot made sure we saw the poker he still carried.
“Okay. You can drive me.” He waved the poker in front of the window.
“But if you do anything fishy, and I mean anything, this will penetrate one, if not both, of your balls. And I’ll go straight through.
I don’t have good aim, so you’d better hope I don’t miss and hit your dick. ”
I couldn’t help but smile. I shouldn’t have. After all, Elliot had threatened my life with a poker the entire time he’d been in my care, but his feistiness was cute.
Even Cael seemed amused.
He pressed the button on the car door, and Elliot climbed into the back seat.
“Seatbelt,” Cael said as soon as Elliot was seated.
“I’m in the backseat. If we crash, your big head will keep me from going through the windshield.” Elliot smirked at me as I turned to meet his gaze.
“Seatbelt, Elliot. Or we’re not moving.” That was the wrong way to approach Elliot. He was far too quick-witted for Cael’s bossiness.
“Fine, don’t. I’ll get out and go to that house right there.
” Elliot pointed to a two-story craftsman where a woman peeked around a curtain.
“She seems very interested in us, don’t you think?
I bet I can convince her to call the cops.
Who do you think she’ll believe?” He swirled his hand around his own face.
“Me. Who looks like the guy who delivered her pizza three nights ago? Or you? Mr. Kidnapper Thug Mafia Hitman.”
I tried to hold back a laugh, and I mostly succeeded.
“I don’t want him going into some stranger’s house, Cael.” I’d go in after him to keep him safe, but he was safer with me in the car than in that house.
Elliot let out a sardonic chuckle. “Please. You don’t exactly give me the warm fuzzies, either, Grymley Reaper.”
Cael narrowed his eyes and looked at Elliot in the rearview mirror. “He should. He’s the only reason you’re still on this mortal plane. Everyone else wants to usher you into the afterlife, where all the beloveds belong.”
Cael got the car moving.
I stiffened. “If you threaten him again, I’ll end you.”
Cael’s jaw ticked. “I’m not threatening him. I’ll protect him with my life simply because he means so much to you. But that doesn’t mean I agree with your stance on the prophecy or on keeping him here. I don’t understand why things have to change.”
“Things have to change because he exists. He’s a human being who deserves whatever future he wants.
Who are you to decide where he belongs? You’re just a reaper.
Same as me. We’re nothing compared to him and the others like him.
” I thought I could trust Cael with my beloved, but I wasn’t so sure anymore.
Cael cursed. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize to me. Apologize to Elliot, who’s already scared because of you.” I turned in my seat to meet Elliot’s gaze. I just wanted to make sure he was all right.
The poker was no longer lying across his lap. Instead, the business end was pointed at Cael’s neck. If he turned his head, the point would graze his chin.
His hands shook. His Adam’s apple bobbed, and fear creased his brow. Yet he met my gaze.
“I’m sorry, Elliot,” Cael said, but the apology was half-hearted. “None of what I said was a threat. It’s just that your existence is... problematic.”
Elliot didn’t take his gaze off me. “I’ve done nothing to you, so how could it?”
“I’ll explain everything. I promise. I just want to get you home first.” I held out my hand. “If you take my hand, I’ll get us there much sooner.”
“How?”
“Teleportation.”
“Bullshit.”
I shook my head. “Take my hand, and I’ll show you.”
Cael cursed. “We’re five minutes away.”
“You’ve threatened him and made it seem as if his life doesn’t matter.” That last part was almost worse than the first. “You’re an unfeeling swine, Cael. And I, for one, need to be away from you.”
“Me, too,” Elliot said under his breath.
He put his hand in mine. His fingers were cold. I wanted to warm them, but I wanted to get us out of there first.
****
The landing was difficult from a sitting position, but I made sure Elliot had a soft place to fall. What I didn’t expect was him wrapping his arms around me, clinging as he shut his eyes and braced himself as if he were in an airplane.
I hesitated to hold him tight because I didn’t want to scare him, but when we finally landed in his yard and he relaxed, I wrapped him in a hug.
“Are we there yet?”
I smiled. “You can open your eyes now.”
It was just getting dark, with the sun dipping below the treeline. We ended up behind his house, next to the forest. It smelled of pine and frozen earth.
“How did you do that?” Elliot lifted his head from my chest and met my gaze. Before I could answer, he frowned and turned toward the house. Revolving blue lights lit the corners of the house and the grass.
Elliot sucked in a breath. His eyes were like saucers as he scrambled to his feet. “Silvia called the police.”
I sighed. It would be a problem, but a minor one. I got to my feet. “Why would she do that?”
“Because I was on the phone with her. My neighbor is older. We take turns caring for him.”
“Gary McKinney.” He was in my sector. He was on my list to take to the afterlife. It would happen the next morning.
Elliot narrowed his eyes. “How do you know his name?”
The cogs were turning in his mind, trying to figure out how I’d gotten him home without magic.
It would be interesting to see what he came up with.
But first, I needed to come up with some sort of explanation for knowing Mr. McKinney’s name without actually lying, so Elliot wouldn’t harp on the point.
Before I could, a cop came around the corner of the house, his gun pointed at us. I thought the gun was excessive, given that they were there to make sure Elliot was okay.
I raised my hands without being told, but of course, Elliot didn’t. Instead, he rolled his eyes and stepped in front of me, as if to protect me from the cop. “I’m Elliot Coyne. I’m fine. False alarm.”
“Get behind me, Elliot.” I couldn’t help the exasperation in my tone or the scowl. Elliot putting himself at risk didn’t sit right, even though I knew the officer’s bullet wouldn’t kill him. I didn’t want Elliot to be in pain, though.
The cop didn’t seem to care what Elliot said, as the gun still pointed at us indicated.
“If he shoots anyone, it will be you, not me.” Elliot turned to the cop again. “He’s harmless.”
“His bullets won’t hurt me.” I was immortal, but so was Elliot.
The bullet would still hurt. And I wasn’t harmless.
Not with my beloved’s safety. I addressed the cop, holding out my hand.
As soon as my eyes locked onto his and I had him under my influence, I felt him resist. But when I said, “Lower the gun,” the resistance intensified.
The cop’s hand shook, and fear entered his gaze.
“How are you doing that?”
“Good question,” Elliot muttered.
I stepped around Elliot and closed the distance between us. “I won’t hurt you unless you hurt him. Do you understand? Elliot Coyne isn’t to be touched.”
“Y-yeah.” His head bobbed frantically. I pulled at his fear, using it against him.
“It’s not your time yet.” He’d have great-grandchildren when he finally entered the afterlife.
He wasn’t quite middle-aged. He was a good person.
He raised his children well and was a faithful husband to a woman he adored.
All he wanted to do in this situation was the right thing, though he wasn’t sure what that was.
“You’ll see me again, but not anytime soon. ”
He nodded as if he understood what I meant, but I sensed his confusion. He put the gun back in its holster on his own, without my influence. I planted a vision in his mind of me escorting his mother into the afterlife. It had been last year, after her massive heart attack.
He drew a breath. Tears gathered in his eyes. “You’re...”
I nodded. “I am.”
“Is she... okay?”
“I don’t know. I can’t go past the veil. But I know she’s making a life on the other side.” I lifted the vision away.
The cop wiped his eyes, then met Elliot’s gaze. “Tell your neighbors you’re safe.”
“Will do. Thank you, officer.”
The cop met my gaze, then sighed. “I’ve seen a lot in my day, but you’re something new.”
Then the cop turned and walked away.
“Wait!” Elliot ran past me toward him.
The cop stopped and turned toward Elliot. “Is Gary all right?”
“Ask your friend? He’d know better than I do.” With that, the cop disappeared around the corner of the house.
Elliot turned to me, narrowing his eyes. “What do you know about Gary?”
“He never married, but he loved deeply. I escorted his love, Charlie, into the afterlife during the war. Mr. McKinney never found romantic love again, but he considers you family. He’s left you everything in his will.
Inside the box is a letter he wrote to tell you not to mourn him and to share a bit about your future. He has the sight.”
Elliot paled. “How-how do you know about the box? He just told me about it earlier today.”
“I don’t know how I know. I just do. Knowing comes with the job.” I could tell Elliot fought the truth but began to believe. “Don’t you remember me?”
Elliot nodded. “That was a dream, or some sort of psychotic break.”
“You were the last thing your mother spoke of before she entered the afterlife. You almost chose to be with her.”
I might as well have slapped Elliot. It would have drawn the same reaction. Elliot fought back tears and anger. His hands fisted at his sides. He might have wanted to hit me, but he didn’t step closer. “Why are you doing this to me?”
“She said she was worried about you. She asked me if I would tell you how sorry she was, but that’s not what reapers do.
So I told her I couldn’t.” It was against Bureau policy to deliver messages to loved ones, but the Bureau wasn’t a priority anymore.
“She loves you above anyone and anything else.”
Elliot opened his mouth, but only a sob came out. I was beside him in seconds. To my surprise, he didn’t push me away when I gathered him in my arms. He would have collapsed if I hadn’t been holding him. I carried him into the house.
“Why are you doing this to me?” he repeated into my chest.
“I don’t mean to cause you pain, baby, but I’m not sorry for your grief. Sometimes the dead don’t have anyone to grieve them.” His mother was a nice lady who deserved her son’s love.
“Can you bring her back?”
The back door led into the kitchen. A chair was pulled out from the kitchen table, so I sat down, but I didn’t let him go.
“I’m afraid I can’t, but you can see her whenever you want. You’re very special, Elliot.” He could visit her in the afterlife and still return to the living realm. Or he would be able to if he allowed me to get close to him.
Elliot wrapped his arms around my neck and held on. “I want to believe you.”
I didn’t want to drop any more truth bombs on him. I’d just turned his world upside down. Unfortunately, the rest of what I had to tell him would shatter his reality.