Reapers Don’t Ride (Singsong City #10)

Chapter 1

Chapter

One

The fly circled above my head, veering around Coral’s big, bright pink face.

Coral’s skin hung from her bones where there used to be fat to hold it in place.

Coral had Mondays, but she looked tired today, too tired to give me the exercise all Mr. Good’s associates claimed I needed.

It didn’t matter that Good wasn’t in jail with us anymore; they were still loyal to him and vengeful towards me.

I’d testified against him, almost as though I resented being enslaved by his dagger—and him.

I inhaled deeply and could smell the blood bags for today’s lunch all the way around the corner down the stairwell.

A-positive, my personal favorite, and also Coral’s flavor.

Sometimes I almost missed drinking from the vein, but I wasn’t about to be bound to anyone, particularly someone who was still owned by Mr. Good, heart and soul.

Coral saw me on the stairs and snarled, baring filed teeth like she was trying to be a goblin. She smelled of fairy, not goblin, but it would be cruel to mention it. I was never cruel, no matter what they said about me. Cruelty was inefficient. Efficiency was the first lesson of assassination.

Like Coral’s trajectory, how to displace her weight and move it over the banister while exerting as little effort as possible so that I could efficiently make it to lunch before all the other vampires took the freshest blood bags, leaving me with something less appetizing.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t throw her over the banister and leave her unconscious for someone else to find, and it wasn’t because the guards would see and take away my privileges. The cameras didn’t see this particular stairwell, which is why Coral was here waiting for me.

“Why not after lunch?” I asked, my words making her hesitate and stumble on the iron grating landing. I notoriously didn’t talk much.

Her confusion cleared, morphing into snarling derision.

“Traitors don’t deserve lunch.” Her swipe at my head was so slow, but I stood in place, letting it graze me before I ducked, almost as slow, out of range.

I could kill her so easily, so many ways to puncture the flesh, drain the blood, dispose of the evidence, but instead, I danced awkwardly with her, letting her get in a few blows so she felt better about herself.

The fly came in range and I caught it while her knee came up, connecting with my stomach.

It reminded me that I was hungry and that Coral’s blood type was on today’s menu.

I held the little buzzing insect, watching its wings flutter while it was held helpless in my grasp.

I bashed Coral’s forehead with mine with those little wings still struggling in my fingertips.

She fell back, stumbling down the steps while I turned and took the stairs up, turning around the corner and into the view of the cameras so Coral wouldn’t follow.

I continued up to the top of the stairwell where a large metal enspelled door would keep me and every other prisoner out of the watchtower and the walkway that overlooked the island fortress.

That was fine. I had no intention of leaving.

I carefully slid my hand through the gap in the metal and released the fly so it was outside of the prison, so it could be free.

I watched it as long as I could make out the black speck, away from the most secure facility in the world, and smiled as it found its freedom.

—

The blood was stale. I took it anyway from the cafeteria worker who shifted nervously, tattoos and needle scars up and down her arms. She enjoyed a higher level of freedom than me or the other more dangerous inmates. She also rarely got in fights. Lucky girl.

“Thank you,” I said without thinking about it.

Her eyes widened. I’d never spoken to her before. What was it about today that I felt the need to voice my thoughts? That boded ill. I took the blood pouch and moved at a pace that matched the more human inmates around me.

I sat at the table nearest the exit, across from a zombie girl who ate cow brains so enthusiastically that no one else could stomach consuming their lunch in her presence. I leaned back and sipped, enjoying the silence her open-mouthed chewing engendered.

“You’re different today,” she said, frowning at me, tufts of pale green hair sticking up through her multiple ponytail holders. Black. Prison regulation ponytail holders were the only things we had to manage our hair. I left mine down, the better to cover the orange and white striped jumpsuit.

I didn’t answer her, just sucked my blood and focused on the silence between breaths.

If I concentrated, I could listen to people breathe, but it was better to not listen to everything, to focus on the absence of sound, of movement, of stillness that could be caught between everything else.

A movement in my periphery was the only warning I needed.

A guard raised a com and spoke gently into it while her eyes focused on me.

I stood up before the intercom blared, “Prisoner 754, report to the nearest guard.”

That was the number printed on the back of my jumpsuit.

The nearest guard was through the stone wall to my left, but they probably didn’t mean that one.

I could hear him breathing on the other side of the prison, where the male inmates had their lunches.

They were louder, had more fights, and cheered more during the fights.

We had more deaths. I preferred the women’s side by a wide margin.

“You called,” I said to the woman at the door who stared at me like she didn’t know what to do. No, she pulled her taser like I was going to threaten her, like my speaking to her was a threat.

“Easy,” Barbie said, the oldest guard in the place, who was impossible to ruffle. I admired her calm influence as she covered the new guard’s taser hand with hers. “This is 754, the one we need to take to the warden.”

The new girl’s eyes widened, and she looked even more nervous.

“For good behavior,” I said, wondering if that would make her more nervous or put her at ease.

It did neither. She looked confused, looking at Barbie for guidance.

The old guard gave me a look, amusement clearly visible in her expression.

She didn’t try to hide her feelings, she just controlled them.

“It’s possible. 754 hasn’t ever been caught violating the rules.”

The two dropped behind me while we headed for the door, passing through while the glares and stares followed me out into the broad gray hall.

When we reached the end of the hall, they flanked a gray door.

“Go on in,” Barbie said, giving me a confident nod.

A sense of foreboding rushed up inside me, making the scent of Barbie’s blood tempting. I raised the blood bag to my lips and sipped it, focusing on the stillness between sucks, the heavy scent of stale blood, and the silence between the guards’ heartbeats.

I turned the knob and stepped into the gray office occupied by one figure, sitting behind a desk, his golden hair and fierce blue eyes framed by twin golden wings like heaven had come down to mingle with those trapped in purgatory.

“You’re an angel.” I sucked on my blood bag, wishing I could force the words back. I should observe, not engage.

He nodded, and then I noticed the white at his temples, the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, and the scent of responsibility and power that rested on his brow.

“Because you have wings,” I added, like it was possible to miss the enormous things.

“Actually, because I have angel blood. It’s the blood, not the wings, that makes the angel. Won’t you sit?” He gestured with one hand towards the small gray chair identical to the one he was sitting in, but he made his look like a magnificent throne.

I shook my head. “That won’t be necessary.

Whatever you want, the answer is no.” I sipped my blood and tried not to notice his heavenly scent.

Literally, angels always smelled the most delicious of all possible blood donors, like a specialty bread shop for humans that always wafted appetizing aromas.

He leaned back and tilted his head slightly, thinking over my answer as though it weren’t as simple and straightforward as possible. “Your records are very thorough on the many murders you committed, including details that are entirely unnecessary.”

“I know,” I said, then took another slow sip.

I was getting to the end of my stale blood, and I wanted it to last through this 1interview.

My skin was starting to itch, a psychological reaction to being in great danger from a creature that would take a great deal of luck and skill to kill.

Also, I wouldn’t kill him because he was entirely uncorrupted.

I could smell corruption, and his skin smelled of determination, minty toothpaste and cinnamon, not corruption.

He smiled slightly. “You aren’t curious why I came all this way to see you? I might be able to get you out of jail.”

“I’m done making deals.” That was the raw, unvarnished truth.

My first deal had been with a demon who had owned me for almost a hundred years.

He’d agreed to the deal thanks to the traces of angelic I had in my blood.

Tralcon was obsessed with corrupting angels, and there I was, smelling angelic enough to tempt him.

I’d traded that master for Mr. Good, the lesser of two evils, bound to his knife and his will so that I could take that knife and end the demon.

The second deal was by far the more palatable, but that wasn’t saying much.

He nodded slightly. “Then let us talk of redemption.”

I bared my teeth in a smile and made some sound that might have been a laugh if I weren’t an undead monster. “I’m a vampire. There is no redemption for me.”

His brow twitched. “Spoken like you believe it as a truth. But I’m an angel. Redemption is for everyone.”

“Angels are delusional.” I certainly had been.