Chapter Two
Darcy
The bar is in the middle of a crooked, cobblestone street; the slate-shingle roof at an angle, the wood siding faded in some spots and bright with color in others.
Flashes of deep crimson bleed through navy blue, like it’s been painted over several times in what has obviously been a very long life.
Maybe even longer than mine. Evergreen creeps in at the corners, reaching toward a wooden sign that simply reads bar.
There’s no other name as far as I can see.
A neon light flickers in the window, flashing orange and then red.
OPEN
My magic tugs me in that direction, and I dutifully follow, tracking the details around me. I compare them to the ones in my vision, looking for discrepancies. There is no autumn storm, no haunting song bleeding from somewhere down the road. The pavement is dry. The street is silent.
The bar is the right place, but nothing else matches up. It’s not time for me to reap my assigned soul. Not yet.
Sometimes I’m dropped directly into the moment of my charge’s death, and other times, I need to hunt for it.
I once spent two weeks in a small mountain village, waiting for the death of a sheep farmer.
Another time it was half a year in Brooklyn Heights, trailing after the owner of a bodega like a shadow.
I prefer the waiting. When I’m dropped in the middle of the pen-ultimate moment, it’s like being cracked across the back of the skull with someone else’s anguish.
I struggle beneath the weight of it. But when I need to wait, I can pretend I’m there for another reason.
I can almost convince myself that I’m good.
I roll my shoulders and make my way toward the bar, pulling my coat tighter around me.
I traded my cloak for a long, black wool jacket, my scythe magically tucked into the bag strapped across my chest. My chestnut-colored hair is twisted back in a sensible braid, and my hands and wrists are bare of any jewelry.
To anyone passing by on the street, I’m a completely normal, unassuming twenty-seven-year-old woman.
A man with a fisherman’s cap pulled low over his eyes emerges from the bar, one arm caught in the sleeve of his jacket. He jerks as I move closer, his fight or flight activated by my presence. He catches the door, his jacket forgotten, staring at me like—well, like he’s seen a ghost.
“In or out?” he asks, his voice faint.
“In,” I say, reaching for the handle.
He pulls away before our arms can brush, and I give him a small smile.
His reaction chafes, though I know it shouldn’t.
I can’t fault the mortals for their instincts.
Death clings to me like a second skin. I am the goose bumps on the back of his neck.
The whisper in the back of his mind that warns him of danger.
But the feeling will fade, and tomorrow, he won’t think of the strange woman standing on the front stoop of his favorite bar.
His memory of me will muddle. I exist at the very edge of his comprehension.
It’s the only way we’re able to continue our work.
The mortals would rather live in their own delusion than confront the magic that drifts among them.
I was the same way when I was alive.
The man moves past me without another word, glancing over his shoulder several times as he wanders down the street.
What would it be like, I wonder, to be something people move toward instead of away from? It’s been so long since I’ve been anything other than feared.
Morose thoughts for a morose woman. If Aelia were here, she’d flick me in the forehead and tell me to get something fruity and frozen from the bar.
Unfortunately, this bar doesn’t look like it has anything fruity or frozen.
I let the door swing shut behind me, the warmth and the noise drawing me in.
A wide oak bar top stretches across one side of the room, stools with cracked green leather tucked close.
Round wooden tables fill the rest of the space, mismatched chairs and old paper menus stacked in the middle of each.
There’s a group of midshipmen at one, some fishermen at another.
The ceiling arches in the back, hiding a tiny alcove where a couple sits tucked close, their legs tangled beneath the table.
It smells like beer and salt water and cigarette smoke, an ancient jukebox in the back creaking out Pearl Jam.
I immediately love it.
Maybe the tree did hear me. Maybe this time I’ve been dropped in a place that’ll do me some good. Maybe I can even make a little vacation out of it, before the whole business of collecting my marked soul.
There’s one stool open at the bar, wedged between a wide window and a man with his sleeves rolled to his elbows.
Blond hair, not black. Mid-fifties. No laugh lines.
I go through my mental checklist as I slide onto the stool next to him.
He gives me a cursory glance and a grunt of a greeting before turning his attention back to the baseball game playing on the slightly crooked television above the bar.
I drop my messenger bag at my feet, toss my coat over my lap, and pick up a menu.
It’s immediately plucked out of my hands.
“You don’t need that.”
On the other side of the bar, a man watches me with a half smile carved across his face.
He’s … big. Even with a bar between us I can tell he’s easily over six feet.
Strong arms and a broad chest. Dark hair curly and messy, like he just tumbled out of bed or spent the last fifteen minutes dragging his hands through it.
He tosses the menu on the counter behind him, then braces himself against the edge of the bar, tipping into my space.
The muscles of his arms shift beneath the rolled sleeves of his plain white T-shirt and my eyes don’t know where to land.
He’s striking in a way mortals rarely are. The eyes, the hair, the face.
And his bare arms, covered with hundreds of small, seemingly random tattoos.
A withering vine on his wrist. A lighter with a burst of wildflowers on the inside of his elbow.
A butterfly on his bicep and an empty jar, right below it.
More disappear beneath his sleeve, and I find myself squinting, trying to make out their shape beneath the thin material of his shirt.
He clicks his tongue. “Eyes up here, sweetheart.”
My attention snaps to his face and his smile widens.
“You’re gonna give me a complex,” he says, “if you keep staring like that.”
“Sorry.” Except I’m really not, and that’s its own bright and shiny problem. “I was just looking at your … doodles.”
“Doodles,” he repeats, amused. “Most people call them tattoos.”
“Sure.”
He extends his arms, twisting them beneath the light. “You don’t like them?”
“They’re … interesting. I like the—ah—hot dog? On your wrist.”
Both of his eyebrows jump up. “It’s a bumblebee.”
I look at it again, squinting. “Oh.”
“Have you seen a hot dog before?” He grabs a coaster from farther down the bar and tosses it in front of me. I get a glimpse of a long, deadly-looking sword tattooed from elbow to wrist. That one, I think, is not a doodle. “Better yet, have you seen a bumblebee?”
“Maybe you should look into finding a new artist.”
He laughs again. “Yeah, maybe I should.” He drums his hands on the bar top. “All right, trouble. What are you looking for tonight?”
“I don’t know,” I deadpan, thrilled at the nickname and desperately trying to hide it. This is the most a mortal has talked to me in … decades. “Someone took my menu.”
“I didn’t ask what you wanted, I said what are you looking for.”
“Is there a difference?”
“Yeah, I mean, you could say you want a martini, and I’d tell you you’re full of shit.” He tips his head to the side, his sharp eyes locked on mine. “Why’d you come out tonight?”
“Because I wanted a martini.”
Another low laugh rumbles out of him, his eyes squinting at the corners. “Yeah, okay. See, I knew you were trouble.” He leans down on his elbows. “Try again, sweetheart.”
“A beer?”
He shakes his head slowly. “Nah.”
“A handful of stale peanuts.”
“Good. We got plenty of those.”
I laugh and decide maybe honesty wouldn’t be the worst thing. Not with this strange man who eases closer instead of running away.
“All right,” I say. “I came out tonight because I wanted to try something different.”
He hums and leans a fraction of an inch closer, his forearms bracketing either side of my elbows. Bare skin against black wool. If I shifted in either direction, I’d be tucked neatly against him.
“There we go,” he rumbles, sounding pleased. My stomach swoops. “I think we can manage that.”
“So, you’ll make me a martini?”
“Like I said, that’s not what you want.”
“How do you know?”
“Call it professional discretion.”
“I’m not convinced you actually work here.”
He taps two fingers over his chest. The word BAR is printed there in nononsense, bold black lettering. “You can trust me.”
And that’s the odd thing about it. I feel like I can. “Okay,” I agree softly.
“Okay,” he says back. “Tell you what. All I’ve got at the bar tonight is a bunch of old heads who aren’t interested in talking and a table full of navy boys doing J?ger shots. You want something different and so do I. Save me from my fate, I beg of you.”
I have to bite the inside of my cheek against my smile. “What did you have in mind?”
“Play a game with me.”
I arch an eyebrow. “A game?”
He nods. “If I guess the right drink for you, you’ll have to keep me company for the rest of my shift.”
“And if you guess the wrong drink?”
“I won’t.”
“But if you do, what do I get?”
“I guess you get a shitty drink.”
A harsh bark of a laugh tumbles out of me, and I clap my hand over my mouth, embarrassed.
His eyes shine in the dim light of the bar, delighted. “Is that a yes?”
I drop my hand and let my smile unfurl, feeling deliciously light and bubbly. Maybe I don’t need a drink, or a vacation, or a sweater with a sparkly unicorn on it. Maybe I need to flirt with a handsome stranger in a dimly lit bar. Maybe I need to forget who I am and what I’m here to do.
Live a little. Isn’t that what Aelia said?
“Yes,” I say. “I guess you better go make me my drink.”