11. Raven
Two people ran up the street, a third dashed to the left, and the fourth, a woman, raced into the adjacent café. The shop’s door quickly closed and locked.
Unsurprising reaction, given the fear Aoes attempted to press upon us about MDs, PDs, and RFYL soul-sucking specters…or whatever they turned out to be. We were strangers amongst these people, and what did strangers represent to the citizens?
Mr. Aldine’s hand remained raised and waving. “Please don’t go on our account. Stay and enjoy your drinks.”
Chace huffed. “What did you expect? Veritas’s citizens are a hundred years out of practice when it comes to social skills and making friendly with new acquaintances.”
I hummed my agreement. Because, after a century of being trapped in a city with all the same individuals, no strangers likely dwelled among them. Not. A. Single. One. And anyone unknown would be considered suspicious.
The locals didn’t look back as they continued putting distance between us and them. The woman in the café gasped at us through the window set in the center of the door, then she pulled down the shade, blocking herself from view.
Mr. Aldine flinched and tugged back his sleeve. A scrawled name glowed on the skin of his arm. The name indicated a nearby target—a soul in need of reaping. Intended subjects often appeared and disappeared based on one’s proximity.
Hard to lose a note, task, or assignment when it’s written on your flesh.
“It’s not her.” He nodded toward the café before redirecting his attention to the two men and one woman hustling up the street. “Must be one of them.”
Chace took large strides forward. “Then onward we go.”
I hurried to keep pace, refusing to be out-reaped on our first day. Even though the collection wasn’t a contest, the competitive nature between the Gunn and Badden families had always existed, and I needed to hold my own in front of Chace.
One of the fleeing men sprinted into a tailor’s shop. Mr. Aldine ignored him, keeping the other two in his sights. Those two citizens quickened their speed and headed for the angled building dividing the path. A church, by all appearances.
Our mentor continued to lead the chase. “It must be one of those two.”
Must be? Doesn’t he know?
Was Mr. Aldine getting too old for a task of this caliber? Chace had suggested the elder’s capabilities were basically on par with plant life duty. A nonexistent, lay-down, do-nothing job.
Being familiar with the target came with the inking of their name upon our skin. I had always just known. And, according to my mom, the feeling functioned the same for every reaper. The mark supposedly worked like a real-time navigation map to the target’s soul.
The locator ability―just one of three tools, or gifts, that came naturally to reaper-kind.
The soul locator or navigation map tugged from the core, the reaper’s grip radiated from the palm, and the collector’s eye activated in the reaper’s actual eye.
The grip temporarily tethered a departing soul to the reaper’s direction, and the eye cut through the soul’s defenses and opened them to the truth―the bliss of the hereafter.
In addition to those three natural tools, every reaper received a company issued scythe that, with one easy swipe through the air, opened the gateway to the beyond.
Over the centuries, a few cases of other unique reaper gifts in a varied range of types and strengths had been documented. But those added tools were rare enough that they didn’t even warrant a chapter in the reaper’s handbook. More like a paragraph, maybe two.
Mr. Aldine winced. A second name flickered to life on his skin. “It’s both of them.”
My pace increased to a jog.
Searing pain etched across my arm, causing me to flinch. Slowing, I yanked back my sleeve. A name glowed on my forearm. Chace sucked in a sharp breath between his teeth, and if his ogle of his arm meant anything, he too had a target. Each reaper had an official task assignment.
Four names between the three of us.
White-hot stinging, and another name materialized on my arm.
Five names now, and only two people in sight.
The task assignment sent my mind on a tangent. Why had none of us received a reaping task when in the presence of Aoes’s zombified boss, Earl?
Something I’d definitely needed to ponder…later.
I stopped dead in my tracks. Nothing but closed doors and covered windows surrounded the area. No one wandered the street or hid in the shadows, except…
Not a precise tug as I expected, but my internal navigation tilted my head down and to the side. A tiny face peered at me from between a set of propped-open cellar doors.
My heart squeezed. I wanted to tell the child everything would be all right, but I didn’t know that it would.
The cellar doors closed, and the face vanished.
A scraping drew my gaze to the second-story window, where someone else had pulled back the drapes to peer down at me. Our gazes met. The individual gasped and jumped out of sight, the drapes dropping back into place.
Everyone appeared afraid of me, even without knowing me, my origin, my truth. Their reactions served to fuel my theory regarding strangers.
I pressed my lips together in a tight line.
Was my tasked acquisition the one above or below…
or another yet to be identified? Damn the faulty precision of my reaper navigation.
Guess that could explain Mr. Aldine’s response.
Maybe the magical barrier, or other mystical energies at play, caused interference.
The names on my arm throbbed, signaling me to move and reap the souls. But those souls—the names of those in need of reaping—hid inside, or under, the building. Nearby but out of sight.
Not that something like walls and locked doors will stop me.
Before I could put a plan into action, a piercing scream cut through the cold night.
I spun toward the sound and caught the fading light from a reaper tool’s flash up the street. Chace, already in motion, ran toward Mr. Aldine and the two people he pursued.
The door to the angled church structure anchoring the fork in the road now sat wide open. Black smoke in the shape of humanoid creatures slithered free.
One of the shadowy creatures darted after the local man, chasing him up the street. As for the woman, she crumpled to the ground and screeched. The blackness leered over her, with its long fingers outstretched, clicking and clucking, clicking and clucking.
The sound rattled my bones and frightened the hairs on the back of my neck straight.
“What the…” I mumbled and lurched a step forward.
My heavy feet willed me not to move closer. Whatever I beheld…nothing about it could be called natural. It seethed of despair and misery and…
The shadow creature evaporated, and the woman’s screams stopped. She flopped and fumbled then finally pushed to a tilted stand.
Her attacker might have departed, but she had become monstrously wrong. Her movements jerked, and she held her head at an odd angle, as if too heavy for her neck. She had become a zombified version of herself. Like Earl, she had transformed into an MD—a mostly dead.
The change happened so quickly, so―
Several more shadowy monsters burst free from the open door, clicking and clucking.
I forgot to breathe, even as my heart accelerated into overdrive. An average reaping was one thing. But this…
I came one hundred percent unprepared for this. Whatever this was.
The moon pressed upon me, and the ground swelled, leaving me unbalanced. I steadied my breath and channeled all my will to remain standing. My world had become smoke and shadow.
If those dark monsters touched a reaper, would they become equally affected? I needed to know, yet I didn’t care to become the test subject.
The dark, opaque, long, fringy creatures charged. Charged at Mr. Aldine, at Chace, at me.
“Run. You’d better run,” whispered tiny voices from the shadowed windows beside me. They joined with another―deeper, masculine―coming from an unseen source. “They are drawn to the most powerful in the vicinity, and that would be you.”
Reaping hell.
A desert anchored in my throat. My feet unglued and kicked into action. One, two, three steps backward and I spun (got slapped in the face by my ponytail) and raced in the opposite direction.
My actions didn’t make sense to my logical thoughts, and yet… Somewhere in the chaos of my mind, Chace yelled my name. I shouldn’t have run away but rather run to the problem. Somehow fixing the issue with a reaping.
Only I had no clue what those things were or if I could reap them. And I had zero desire to become zombified in my first few hours on the task. Plus, I’d listened to the voices, and as much as I didn’t want to admit the truth, fear strangled me.
I would not end up like that woman—monstrously wrong.
No. I would survive so that I would have time to formulate a better plan for the wretched situation. A more successful plan.
The clicking and clucking grew ever closer. Clearly faster than me, the dark specters licked at my heels.
“Raven,” Chace called again.
Did I hear panic in his voice? Panic for me? For him? The situation?
Let’s face it, Chace could be a jerk, and my father was adamant I not trust the guy, but for this job, we were coreapers. If for no other reason than the success of the task, I needed to learn to trust him. Somewhat.
An impossible tightness clenched my chest. Despite my fear, I would never forgive myself if I left Chace or Mr. Aldine to the fate of those creatures.
A growl of frustration vibrated within my throat.
I curled my fists tight enough to turn my knuckles white and slice my nails through the soft flesh of my palms. Gritting my teeth, I prayed I wouldn’t regret my next move.
One quick pivot, and I spun back to aid my coreapers.
A wall of black awaited me. The shadows snapping at my back now before me, and advancing wickedly fast. Soon, they would topple right over me.
I threw up my arms as if to stop them. But I’d seen what the one had done to the woman. The woman’s state had changed, drained of vitality, without a touch between them.
Movement blurred in the corner of my eye. A solid body of force slammed into me, knocked me sideways to the ground, and weighed me down.
Dammit, Chace.
Who held my ire most, him or me? I had failed to stay on guard for any of his tricks. And so early in the reaping. I should have expected such a stunt to come at one of the worst possible moments. After all, I had turned my back and run.
A chill raced over my skin, and the clicking and clucking silenced, the wall of black smoke vanishing.
I swallowed hard, unsure if I should be happy or more concerned. Had I merely traded one vexation for another?
“Get off me.” I pushed at Chace’s chest.
“Sorry. Did I hurt you?”
I froze and flicked my attention to the force holding me down. My breath snagged. Chace didn’t gaze into my eyes, lay flush against my body, or pin me to the ground. No, not Chace, but a striking, blue-eyed, long pointy-eared stranger of white, weighted against me.
My heart thumped a boulder-crash beat in my chest. Where did this guy come from…and where are the specters?
I stiffened, and my cheeks warmed. I imagined my face beaming as red as a cherry, having allowed an unknown to pummel me to the ground so easily. But I didn’t have time for distractions. Not even distractions with eyes the bluest of blue and skin as clear as fresh snow.
“Excuse me.” I extracted myself from beneath his weight, rolled onto my side, and scanned the street for threats.
Specifically, the shadowy types that chased me.
None were to be found. Living up to the specter title, they appeared to have vanished into the night. Not quite the run-for-your-life type of threat Aoes had me believe them to be.
Before I could push myself off the ground, the guy who had bulldozed me jumped to his feet and offered me his hand.
“We don’t get many strangers visiting our fine citadel.” He glanced up the street to Chace and Mr. Aldine then turned his attention back to me and grinned. “You’re actually the first I’ve had the pleasure of running into. Quite literally. I’m Winter, at your service.”
“Do you do this often? Knock females over with such gusto?”
“Only when I feel undeniably attracted to them.”
I blinked and, catching my mouth hanging open, snapped it shut.
“In truth, you would be my first.” He pressed his hand closer, emphasizing his offer.
“Saying I’m your first is basically implying you intend to do this again.” I accepted his hand, his skin soft and chilled (not warm like his core), and allowed him to tug me to my feet. “Raven. And that there is Chace and―”
The words fell from my lips, becoming lost in my scrambled thoughts as I relinquished my hold. Mr. Aldine and Chace hunched beside the woman, and they… They were…
“Oh, hell.” I gulped, a small egg sized lump sliding down my throat. “I’m sorry, but… I have to go.”
I turned and ran.