Chapter Nine
Darcy
My magic dips and then swells, a rush of energy that leaves me lightheaded.
Young, with smile lines by his eyes. Hair so dark it looks like spilled ink. Thick-framed glasses balanced in the middle of a straight nose.
My skin tingles with awareness and a healthy dose of death magic.
It’s him, my shadows sing, thankfully still hidden. I clench my fists tight and tuck them behind my back to make sure they stay that way. Him, him, him.
This is the soul I was sent to collect.
“Oh, don’t mind me,” he says, misinterpreting the panic on my face. “I was just heading back to the bar. As you were.”
Gabriel steps away from me, the line of his profile in stark relief against the dark of the back hallway. Jaw, chin, nose. He really does look like something carved from stone. “You’re not interrupting anything. We were discussing a … stock issue.”
The stranger—my assignment—snorts. “Yeah. Definitely. Looks like a really good discussion, bro.”
He punches Gabriel’s shoulder, and Gabriel flinches forward, scowling. I’m barely aware of the things they’re saying to each other. I can’t stop staring, trying to catalog as much information as possible.
They seem to know each other. How? Does Gabriel know he’s been marked for death? How much time does he have left? How can I make sure I’m fast enough to stop it if I don’t even know when that is?
Do I tell Gabriel the truth? Do I trust him to believe me?
No, I decide, my panic rising like a bubble.
I can’t tell him. He literally just got done telling me I’m the root of all evil.
If I let him know I’ve found the soul I’m meant to collect, he’ll shut me out and keep me at arm’s length, determined to protect this man on his own.
Death will come for him, and I won’t be close enough to help.
No, I won’t tell Gabriel. I’ll keep this secret and stack it with all the rest.
“Oh, shit. Sorry. I haven’t even introduced myself. I’m Nate.” The lanky man grins at the back of Gabriel’s head, who is still hovering between us. I wonder if it’s because he considers me a blanket threat to society. “I’d shake your hand, but something tells me this asshole won’t let me.”
Of course he won’t, I think somewhat hysterically. He thinks I want to eat your soul with a plate of crackers.
I squeeze my hands tighter, my nails biting against my palms, and manage a shaky smile. “Darcy,” I whisper. “Hi.”
I am physically incapable of anything more complicated than that.
“Are you new in town? I haven’t seen you around.”
“Yes,” I reply, telling myself to calm down. If Gabriel suspects any hint of the truth, I don’t know what he’ll do. I manage a smile. “I’m just passing through.”
“Hopefully not too fast.” Nate winks, his hazel eyes dancing, still trying to edge his way around Gabriel. “This place could use a pretty face.”
“Watch yourself,” Gabriel growls, but Nate just laughs.
“Easy, man. No need for the caged-tiger act. I can catch a hint.” He shoves his hands in his pockets. “But you should maybe head back to the bar. The peasants are getting restless.”
Gabriel sighs and drags a frustrated hand through his hair. “Yeah, okay. I’ll be right there.” His mouth firms into a line. “Try not to get into any trouble in the fifteen seconds it takes for me to get out there.”
“You underestimate me. It would only take three seconds for me to find something mildly inappropriate to indulge in.” He grins and shifts his attention back to me. “Darcy. It was lovely to meet you. I hope we get some time to chat, just the two of us.”
Gabriel grumbles something under his breath I don’t catch, but Nate does. He laughs again.
“Enjoy the rest of your stock discussion,” he teases. He shoots one last meaningful look in my direction, and then he’s gone, ducking through the narrow doorway that leads back to the bar.
Gabriel and I stand still in the darkness, looking anywhere but at each other.
“Is he, uh, a friend of yours?”
“I suppose you could call him that, yeah.”
“You care for him,” I clarify.
Gabriel nods. “I do. Though I’m not entirely sure he deserves it. He’s a handful on a good day.” He turns toward me and studies my face in the low light. His brows pinch together. “Are you all right?”
A hysterical laugh bubbles out of me. This man just insulted me and questioned my intentions, and now he wants to know if I’m okay. Frankly, I’m too thrown by the sudden appearance of my assignment to care very much about what Gabriel thinks of me.
But it’ll sting later. When I’m alone in a home that isn’t mine, my knees curled to my chest as I do my best to fall into a sleep I don’t need.
“Wow,” I try to joke. “That Guardian guilt complex works quick.”
“I owe you an apology,” he says. “I didn’t mean to—” He makes a short, huffing sound. “I shouldn’t have talked to you like that.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t report you to your Cub Scout leader. Your golden boy reputation is safe.”
His frown deepens. “That’s not why I’m apologizing.”
I turn away, embarrassed. I hate that I cried in front of him. Now he clearly thinks I’m some emotionally destitute immortal being, floating through the afterlife one accusation away from a full break-down. I mean, he wouldn’t be wrong with that assumption, but—
I don’t want him to think I’m not strong.
So I straighten my shoulders and gather up all my tattered edges and tug them close. I hold on to my secrets with a white-knuckled grip. “It’s fine. We’re—fine.”
Gabriel is still studying me intently. “It won’t happen again, Darcy.”
“Great.” I’m under no illusions he’ll start playing nice, but his guilt is a fine distraction from mine. Tonight, I’ll take it. “I’m going to—I’m going to leave, I think.”
I’m afraid if I linger any longer in this tiny space with him, I’m going to unravel across the floor. I’ll tell him everything. About Nate. About my magic. About the creeping numbness in my chest and in the tips of my fingers.
And if Gabriel knows the truth about who I’m here to claim, where does that leave me?
On the outside, looking in. I can’t have that happen.
He’s still watching me like I’m a crystal vase balanced on the very edge of a ramshackle shelf.
“Are you sure you don’t—” Someone yells his name from the bar, and there’s a chorus of hoots and hollers.
He turns to look over his shoulder, yells a quick Be right there, then turns back to me.
“We need to figure out how this is going to work.”
“You know where to find me,” I tell him.
He nods, then pushes off the wall. “Yeah, I guess I do.”
I slip past him and move quickly down the hallway, back toward the music and the laughter and the sound of glasses clinking together. I’m almost free when he calls my name.
He’s exactly where I left him, his big body hidden in the shadows, one shoulder up against the wall. He looks tired. A portrait drawn in quick, loose lines.
“I really am sorry,” he says. “For how I talked to you.”
“I know.
He nods and there’s nothing else to say.
I can’t absolve him of the truth. I am cruel.
I am suited to the end of things. I just came face-to-face with the man whose life I’m meant to claim, and I didn’t say a word.
I could put a stop to this with one simple confession, and yet I’m holding on to it for my own selfish gain.
Because you can fix it, Darcy, I reassure myself. Because you need to prove to yourself that you can.
I step from the shadows of the hallway to the dull, golden light of the bar.
I grab my bag off my abandoned stool and swing it over my shoulder.
I’m tired, and more than a little shook up.
I’d like nothing more than to be bundled with borrowed blankets on my borrowed couch, Tater Tot’s big head in my lap.
In the corner, I spot Nate with a group of women. Our eyes catch, and he beams, shooting me a two-finger salute. I can’t help but smile back. My Reaper designation should make him inherently wary of me, but he’s decidedly oblivious.
Why him? Why now? What has this man done to deserve his fate? I’ve wrestled with it for decades, but I’ve found only one thing to be true. All of it is dandelion seeds in the wind.
Death comes for us all.
This time, I’d very much like to change it.
I slip my jacket over my shoulders and leave the bar. The silence is jarring after the commotion inside, and I take a moment to reca-librate.
Eyes closed. Deep breath. Dried leaves and cigarette smoke and salt water. I am fine, and so is Nate. The details aren’t right yet. It’s not time.
I still have time.
“Is all well over there?”
I startle. Standing in the halo of a streetlight is an older man with dark brown skin. His hands are shoved deep in the pockets of his flannel coat, his white hair a cloud on top of his head.
He grins at me, his chin tucked in his collar. “Didn’t mean to startle you,” he offers, apologetic.
“You didn’t,” I assure him.
I am, after all, the scary thing lurking on the street right now.
He gestures toward the closed door behind me.
“I like the bar for company, but I try to head out before all the young people arrive.” His smile widens and lines bracket either side of his mouth.
“No one likes staring down their future hunched over the bar eating cherries while they’re having a good time. ”
“I don’t know,” I muse. “Hunched over the bar eating cherries seems like a pretty good future to me.”
His answering laugh is rough from disuse, and his eyes turn shrewd as he studies me in the melting light. “This is a strange question, but have we met before?”
My stomach dips, awareness skittering over my skin like an itchy sweater.
“I don’t think so,” I answer carefully. “I’m new to town.”
“Hm.” He studies me for another extended moment, his mouth pursed. I keep my expression carefully blank, my hands at my sides. His eyes clear, and his smile reappears. “You shouldn’t be out here alone,” he finally calls.
I laugh. “I can handle myself.”
“Then maybe I’m the one who shouldn’t be out here alone.” He holds out his elbow. “Walk an old man home?”
I laugh again and close the distance between us, slipping my arm through his. He shivers and I almost pull away, but then he pats my forearm and I settle.
“I’d like that,” I tell him. “Very much.”
Frank is delightful.
I don’t know if it’s my bone-deep desire for human connection bleeding through, or if he’s just the first mortal I’ve had a conversation with in close to several decades, but everything he says is fascinating.
He tells me how he moved here sixty years ago, and back then there were a lot more fishing boats in the water. They used to bring in fresh oysters and shuck them right there at the docks. People would walk around with lemons in their bags, slurping at cobbled open shells instead of coffee cups.
“You’d find oyster shells tossed in bushes,” he tells me. “Tossed in the rain gutters like cigarette butts.”
He maintains a steady stream of chatter through our entire slow progression down the first cobblestone street, and then the next, pointing out various shops along the way.
“And that,” he says, nodding his head at a cute little shop right at the water’s edge, “is the Crow’s Nest. I don’t know how long you’re in town for or where you’re staying, but Harriet will get you set up with whatever you might need in the way of furnishings. She runs a tight ship.”
I crane my neck, trying to see through one of the dark windows. “Does she carry trinkets, too? Like those little ring dishes? Made of bronze?”
I saw one in the home of a woman I came to collect once. It was filled with loose coins and a sewing needle and a little carving of a bear, barely the size of a thimble. Tiny, random things she probably emptied her pockets of when she returned home.
I always thought it would be nice to have one. To put my things in.
Frank looks confused. “I’m sure she does. Seems a pretty simple thing, and her shop is full of all sorts of odds and ends, top to bottom.”
I make a note to check it out when I’m not strong-arming Gabriel into being my reluctant partner. Frank pats my arm and gestures at a small blue house with a wrought-iron fence. “This is me,” he says, shuffling over to the gate.
I glance down the street with a frown. “Didn’t we pass this house ten minutes ago?”
Frank’s smile is wry. “Did we? I must have gotten turned around.” He raps his knuckles against the side of his head. “I am a very old man, after all.”
I narrow my eyes. “You’re a con artist.”
“Bah.” He waves his hand, climbing up the paint-flecked stairs.
There are massive pots on each one overflowing with autumnal blooms. Reds, oranges.
A deep, muted purple. He turns on the top step as he fishes around in his jacket for his keys.
“Don’t shame an old man for squeaking out a few more precious seconds of your time. ”
“My time isn’t as precious as you think.”
He jingles the keys in his hands and clicks his tongue. “Mm, now you’re sounding like Gabriel. I can see why he likes you.”
My smile evaporates. “I’m not so sure about that.”
“Is that why he dragged you away from that young man you were talking to? Because he doesn’t like you?”
I arch an eyebrow. “I wasn’t aware we were under surveillance.”
“Ah, Darcy. Someone is always watching.” He fits his key into the lock, fussing with the brass handle until it gives. “Come visit me sometime? I own the flower shop two blocks over from the bar. You’re welcome any time.”
Flowers. Of course. I can picture him so easily in a studio surrounded by blooms. Dirt on his hands and a smile on his face.
“I’d like that.”
For once. The simple, honest truth.
Frank nods. “I’ll see you on Thursday, then. Ten a.m. Don’t be late.”
He closes his door with one last parting wave, and I tip my head back, smiling at the star-flecked night sky, boundless above me.
Hope, or something like it, pricks at my magic, humming just beneath my skin.
I try to curl my hands around it. Remember this feeling for when the dark starts to creep in again.
“Yeah,” I agree. “I’ll see you then.”