by Riley Archer
“Hey!” I scowled and rubbed my skull. Then I realized it wanted me to follow.
It led me to the back wall and gestured at a cobbled brick that stuck out a little more than the rest. I pushed on it, and it popped out. A thin, dark opening was hidden behind it.
The skeleton passed me its hand again. The opening was just big enough to slide it inside. I wasn’t sure if this was a trick or a bad idea, but I had to admit, I owed Bones a favor.
Guessing what I was supposed to do, I slid the hand into the open slot. The stone clacked, and a section of the wall pushed in, revealing a closet-sized opening.
Damian scoffed. “Leave it to necromancers to make a literal skeleton key.”
I shushed him and peeked inside. It was pitch-black, and I sure as heck wasn’t going inside. Bones did though, and when it came out, it had a scythe in hand. An older model, not quite as large as Damian’s antique monster. Bones thrust the scythe out to me. When I hesitated, Bones pushed it at me again.
There was something raw and sincere about the gesture. If Bones had once been a reaper, I thought this might’ve been his or her scythe.
I accepted it. “Thank you.”
After a nod, Bones completely disassembled, lingered in the air for a few seconds, and then clattered to the ground. The smoky red light that held it up disappeared.
“So, this is a magical crystal,” I said, and Damian yanked it off me. Not gently, mind you. I didn’t have the energy to fight it back from him, but that didn’t stop my mouth. “Look, a-hole, I’ve been shocked, sliced, tortured, and I don’t need you—”
Damian smashed the crystal with the tip of his scythe. It crumbled like an egg. I knew for a fact that it was not as fragile as an egg, which made Damian a tad scarier and a helluva lot more annoying. A prickle washed through my skin, and I stared at him, slack-jawed. Maybe the crystal held black magic or something, but that didn’t make him any less rude.
Jake and Sarah returned Mr. Sparky and ran out of the mausoleum. Hopefully, they followed Damian’s instructions and decided to hang out somewhere other than cemeteries from now on.
“Try a mall on for size,” I yelled after them.
Damian gave the old hag a finishing slice, and her black staff disintegrated.
After several calming breaths, I shelved my frustration with Damian and let him store my gifted scythe with his. No matter how bothersome he was, he had saved my ass. And there was a lot worse out there.
Like a Grim Reaper who had a side gig as High Priest of a reaper-targeting coven called Daughter of Grim. And as much as I hated it, I had a pretty good idea who it was.
12
The Laughing Puppeteer
“How’d you find me?” I asked Damian when we made it to his loft.
We had been silent the entire cab ride over.
“You’re a necromancer?” he shot back almost immediately.
“What? No!” My mind reeled. I really couldn’t deal with this right now. “And I asked you a question.”
Damian pressed his eyes like he had a monstrous migraine. “A trace on your burner. I had a feeling you’d step in some shit. I just had no idea how big the pile would be.”
I took no offense. He was accurate. “Oh. The phone. I left it.”
Damian went into the kitchen and scrambled in a drawer. He tossed an identical burner phone at me across the counter and made his way back around. “So, you’re definitely a necromancer, which means your existence is a hundred percent forbidden. Let me see that.” He grabbed my carved-up arm, which had formed a fist. He stared for a solid two minutes without saying anything.
My patience snapped. “Well?”
“I don’t know what these symbols are for, but I know someone who might be able to help. Can you meet me upstate tomorrow?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” I yanked my arm back. “What do you mean? I’m a ‘necromancer’?” I made air quotations.
“Those witches were pulling your power from you and filling the crystal with it. Did you feel anything when the crystal was destroyed?”
I thought about it. “I tingled with anger. At you.”
“Okay, does anger normally tingle you?” Damian asked all too mockingly.
Yep, the anger was back. And no, it didn’t tingle or prickle; it just made me want to throw something at him. Huh.
Damian picked up a sweater that was hanging off the edge of his couch. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. When the crystal was destroyed, you felt your power return. Supernatural beings, including witches like necromancers, are prohibited from becoming reapers. You’re illegal.” He tossed the sweater to me.
I caught it without making a peep. Who knew? I could be stunned into silence.
“I’ll text you the address tomorrow. For now, cover up those cuts and keep a low profile.”
I nodded and made my way to the door.
“And, Ellie?”
Ugh, that name. I turned. “It’s short for Ellis.”
“Ellis,” he repeated, softer this time. “Don’t trust anyone.”
Like most things, that was something I’d learned the hard way.
My first few steps on the rainy street dragged like I was walking with weights tied to my ankles, and I still had a long way to go. I didn’t know how I had managed to go undercover, meet a candy-addicted demon child, go undercover again, get kidnapped and tortured, make friends with a skeleton, find out I might be a freakin’ dark witch thing, and still not know how to operate the spirit elevators on my own.
It was the rotten cherry on top of a complete shit day. If fate had a puppeteer, that motherpeeper was having a nice laugh right about now. And you know what? Screw them.
I threw a full-on hissy fit. Right in the middle of the street. I half-grunted, half-cried while I kicked a metal trash can and flailed my fists in the air. Once the temper tantrum was out of my system, I flagged down a cab and used the remainder of the cash Atlas had given me to get home. Of course the necromancer jerks had left it in my pocket. They didn’t have rent to pay; they bunked with dead guys.
Rain pattered against the window, and I tucked my chin into my hands. The hoodie Damian had let me borrow smelled like him, which wasn’t necessarily a good thing. It didn’t carry a stinky body odor really, but it smelled like a boy’s old blanket, and it was a tad grimy to the touch. He was hot enough to pull it off, but there was no way he showered daily. Someone who beheaded people as easy as breathing should probably shower daily. I’d drop that pearl of wisdom the next time I saw him.
The sun had already poked most of its head out when I made it to the apartment. I stepped in, made a chore of pulling off my boots, walked into the living room, and—
“Agh!” I thrust my hands into the air in full Karate Kid mode.
Atlas was perched on the armrest of the sofa. He wasn’t close to as frightening as other things I’d witnessed tonight, but still. The incident cut at least five years off my second life.
I slowly lowered my defenses. “Um, sorry. You scared me.”
His smile was weak. “Sorry. You scared me too.”
“Oh, these little things.” I shook my hands. “They’re better at stealing food than causing serious injury.”
“You know what I meant.” He glanced at the iPhone beside him.
Whoops. I’d left it behind in case he had a tracker in there. It never crossed my mind that Damian could do the same thing with nothing but the burner’s phone number.
“Er … about that. I can be forgetful.” I didn’t have the energy to be convincing. The last several hours had shaken me to my core. My exhaustion was edging toward delirium, and that was a dangerous place to be. My eyes watered, and I didn’t know why.
“What’s wrong?” Atlas was suddenly right in front of me.
His scent was so clean it was intoxicating; I wanted to be wrapped up in it.
Oh, delirium was here. I actually wrapped my arms around the Command Coordinator. I pulled back, hoping he had been raised somewhere it wasn’t
weird for subordinates to hug their bosses at dawn.
He didn’t say a word. His hand was rigidly hesitant on my hip. His other palm grazed my cheek. Our eyes locked. We were still for a moment, and then we weren’t still at all.
Atlas pulled me to him and pushed his mouth onto mine. It wasn’t sweet or gentle. It was hungry and commanding, and it was exactly what I needed.
I untucked his shirt and explored the skin beneath it. His fingers curled at the base of my skull, and when his teeth skimmed my bottom lip, he gave my hair soft tugs. I sucked in a sharp breath, and he lifted me up. Heat flooded me from the waist down. My legs squeezed his sides as we moved to the bedroom.
We fell on the lush comforter together, our hands moving too fast for straggling thoughts to keep up. Atlas pressed his palms into mine and then massaged inward, to my wrists, to my forearms—
My forearms. The cuts. What would he think if he saw them?
I flinched, and Atlas froze. He moved away so quickly that it left me cold, and he didn’t stop until he reached the foot of the bed.
“This was …” He trailed off. “It’s late.”
I sat up and pulled my knees in. “It’s so late, it’s early.”
His lips quirked. Dawn looked good on him. The green parts of his irises shimmered, and the golden tones in his hair and skin glowed. “Now that I’ve seen you’re in one piece, I’ll head out. Keep your phone on you from now on, yeah?”
He hadn’t just seen I was in one piece. He’d verified it. Multiple times.
Some of the embers left over from the heat of the moment flared.
I sank my teeth into my lip and nodded. “Yes. Definitely. Sorry.”
He gave me a minuscule nod and left. When I heard the front door latch shut, I flung backward into the pillows.
What the hell was that?
13
The Paper People
My keys clinked in the glass bowl on the counter. His hand plastered over my mouth. No matter how hard I fought, he was as unmoving as stone. My lungs cried out. My body sang a song of terror, my ribs shuddering like plucked harp strings. And in the reflection of the glass bowl, there was no pocket. No business card. I found my own murky blue eyes, the life draining from them faster than quicksand. And before my final spark went out, another face blurred beside mine. A beautiful face. A ruthless one. A face I’d come to love.
“Wakey, wakey!” someone shouted.
Two bodies flanked mine with such force that I lifted from the bed.
“It’s noon, lover girl. You have two phones going off.”
I opened my eyes to Ash wiggling her eyebrows. I turned, and Jose was on my other side, propped up on his elbows and happy as a clam. I’d kill them.
“Get away from me, demons!” I dived beneath a pillow.
Ash laughed and then sniffed. “We’re mad at you.”
“Good,” my voice was muffled beneath the fluff. “Go be mad somewhere else.”
“No!”
Oh, they were uncovering me. Jose tried to take my pillow, and I yanked it back. Once I had a good hold, I whupped him with it. He giggled, picked up another pillow, and smacked me upside the head. Ash joined in.
I filled my lungs and spun, turning my pillow into a moving shield. “This. Is. Not. A. Pillow. Fight!”
“You’re only saying that ’cause you’re losing,” Ash said before she got a strike in.
“You want a piece of me? Fine.” Whatever. I had some aggression to take out.
It didn’t take long for the morning slumber party to get competitive. Each of us had been trained up to our eyeballs in hand-to-hand combat, and these weirdos had more moves than I’d expected. Kind of like how they’d managed to evade Atlas that one morning and how they had trailed me for hours without me noticing. It was all very suspicious, and I wasn’t just saying that because their squishy weapons beat me down.
“You don’t even want to know why we’re mad?” Ash fluffed the pillow and arranged it against the headboard.
“No. Don’t you have souls to recruit or something?” I picked up both phones from the side table.
There was a single text from Damian on the burner and two missed calls from Atlas on the iPhone with a single message that read, We didn’t get a chance to go over how yesterday went. Call me later. Next assignment @ Bethesda Terrace, 3 p.m. today.
My stomach swooped. Atlas and I hadn’t gone over anything because we were too busy groping each other.
“It’s because your uptight lover keeps stalking around and putting us out.”
I glanced up. “Where’s Bethesda Terrace?”
“Central Park, you goon.” Ash crossed her arms.
Jose snickered. “You are icy today. Atlas hold out last night?”
I pointed at the exit. “Get out, or I’ll invite him over for the rest of eternity.”
Worked like a charm. They scattered like rats.
I told Damian to meet me at Bethesda Terrace at four. I couldn’t afford another gold-digging cab ride, so if he wanted me to be somewhere, he needed to provide the transportation.
I had never considered myself a sentimental person, but my walk through the park filled me with fuzzy sensations. The leaves had begun their cycle into shades of yellow, burnt orange, and maroon. The open space allowed for a crisp air quality that didn’t quite reach between towering buildings. Sure, I was headed toward someone’s death, but I kind of wanted to skip the rest of the way.
Never once had I ever wanted to skip. Maybe my death and near-death experiences had me appreciating the little things, like the beauty of a famous park.
Nah. I chalked it up as an electrical misfire in my brain, thanks to the wrath of Mr. Sparky. I’d forgiven the misused guy. He was a snuggled burrito in the pocket of a thigh-length jacket I’d found in Atlas’s closet. Linda would approve, and since it was kinda trench coat-y, Damian probably would too.
When I reached the terrace, I was drawn in by arched interior walkways that reminded me of a medieval church. An a cappella group wearing top hats hummed and tapped within it; their voices bounced off the extravagant tiles in a pleasant echo. People surrounded them with pointed phones and cameras. Atlas hadn’t bothered to give me a name or description of the objective, so I supposed I was just going to enjoy the music and wait.
When the group’s song finished, their crowd applauded and dropped quarters into the open guitar case at their feet. Amid the tinkling silver, something crunched against the hard ground outside. Gasps rang out like a melody. I pushed through the wall of tourists to get a look at whatever was going on.
That was when I heard it. The eerie siren cry that made my ears want to bleed. The glitch call had come and gone, and I hadn’t even seen the body yet.
Oof. There it was. A youngish boy was belly-down on the brick, his skull cracked and leaking an expanding ruby puddle. His mouth and eyes were open in slight shock. At least it’d been quick.
His soul form stood at his crushed head, pointing at the terrace above.
Pushed me, he mouthed but no sound came out. Black tendrils overtook the whites of his eyes. His pointing arm morphed into a burbling glob.
Nobody noticed this happening, of course, except a young woman who blinked once and ran in the opposite direction. Most definitely a newbie Collector. Why had she been assigned a murder, accidental or otherwise?
I didn’t have time to ponder the question. The Glitch transformation exploded and threw me against a stony pillar. Ouch. Since the soul energy affected me the most, the flight earned me funny looks from the creepers who were more entranced than scared by the dead body. But there was enough oomph to form a cyclone of leaves and wind. A monster stood at the eye of the storm.
Tall as a tree, he made Hailey’s Glitch a toddler in comparison.
“Get out of here!” I shouted, pushing the people closest by into the arcade. “Go home!”
More funny looks. I kept up with the forceful evacuations anyway.
Every person in the Glitch’s g
eneral vicinity, each one touched by the ooze, froze. No matter their natural skin tone, they each lightened to a shade of papery white, and their eye sockets filled with black. Inky tears slid down their tissue cheeks. Then they were sucked in like flies into a frog’s mouth. The wind picked up and threatened to pull the real trees down.
Now, the screams started. I imagined human onlookers simply saw pedestrians go pale and vanish into thin air. If they were capable of seeing anything more, their voices would have been screeched out already.
I unveiled the curved knife holstered at my back and whipped it. It slapped the gooey surface and disappeared. Mr. Sparky wouldn’t do serious damage to this thing, and I’d have to get uncomfortably close to even test it out. I had nothing significant to protect myself with. Bones’ scythe would have come in handy, but I couldn’t make my own dimensional vault, much less access Damian’s.
In the midst of shooing away anyone dumb enough to approach, I pulled out my phones one at a time.
My text to Atlas: Big Glitch. Send Grim.
My text to Damian: Need u.
All the signs said Don’t Text and Drive. Another good one would have been Don’t Text and Glitch. I swore I had typed as fast as a teenager in a classroom, but it wasn’t quick enough.
A slimy tentacle curled around my waist. A chill jumped to my shoulders, and the monster yanked me from the ground. My burner phone took a plunge and landed smack dab in the circle of blood, but its sticky fate was the least of my worries.
Wind whipped my hair into knots as tight as my nerves. My organs went topsy-turvy. I’d never been on a roller coaster before. If I survived this experience and was invited to a theme park at any point, it’d be a hard pass.
“Let me go, you giant greaseball!”
The gluey thing holding me didn’t leave behind goop or smears as I beat at it. It was spectral and impossible to slip away from.