I see Deacon not far away, and from the look on his face, he’s just as bowled over by the experience as I am. I speed up and fly toward him. He sees me coming and hangs in the air.
“Ha!” he shouts. “Bet you can’t catch me!”
I’m surprised and delighted by his playfulness. “Oh, yeah? I’ll clip those wings of yours, mister!”
He grins from ear to ear and takes off. I chase him, amazed by how fast I can move, and catch up with him easily. It occurs to me that he might have wanted me to reach him, because he could have taken off and left me behind. He had a heck of a head start on me.
We play tag among the sunlit clouds. I manage to grab his ankle, and he pulls away, then doubles back to try to touch me. It’s like being a kid again, or a great big bird, or a little bit of both. I have never felt so free.
And alive.
I’m starting to get a little tired, since flying is still new to me. Muscles I didn’t know I had, which I probably didn’t have this morning, start to ache. I glance down at the ground and see the familiar skyline of New York, looking just like it does in all the movies.
“We’re on earth!” I shout to Deacon. “When did that happen?”
“I don’t know,” he admits.
[I sent you there. You have more souls to collect.] Death’s husky voice is in my head. It feels like he’s right beside me, whispering in my ear.
We fly down toward Central Park. There are dozens of people, maybe even hundreds, hanging out and enjoying the beautiful weather on this gorgeous summer’s day. We swoop low over a set of picnickers, but they don’t see us, even though our shadows are huge and dark.
Deacon leads the way to a paved area, and he lands like in the superhero movies, down on one knee with a hand on the ground. I land beside him, a little less gracefully. The pavement cracks underneath us, and the sound is as loud as a gunshot.
I expect someone to respond, but none of the living people around us so much as glance our way. The ones who are already facing in our direction look right through us. I guess nobody here sees dead people.
“Wow,” Deacon says, still grinning. “That…was incredible!”
“I know, right?” I reach around and stroke my wing. The feathers are silky, and it’s strange to feel my hand resting against a body part I didn’t wake up with. “This is so cool.”
He looks around, the sun gleaming off his hair like honey. “I wonder where our next souls are.”
“The dogs could find them…I hope Death sends them down to us.”
Deacon’s wings beat slowly. He reminds me of a butterfly on a flower, opening and closing its wings. He has a strange look on his face.
“What’s the matter?” I’m surprised again by how sincere I sound. Maybe Deacon is like some kind of fungus. He grows on you.
He glances over at me, his face contorting into a scowl. “For one, I can’t believe he wasted wings on you. It’s not like you did anything to earn them.”
Urgh, he just has to go and ruin things!
“What, and you earned yours?” I retort, frowning at him. “He said it was because we brought in souls that were destined for Heaven. That’s a good thing. We both did a good thing.”
Deacon shakes his head, his scowl deepening. “You just don’t get it.”
“Get what?”
His wings trail on the grass as he walks away. He doesn’t appear very eager to respond. I naturally follow him, refusing to take his silence for an answer.
“Get what, Deacon?” I repeat, scurrying to catch up with him. “You should know I’ll just keep asking until I receive an answer. I’m annoying like that.”
More silence. I huff and chase after him through the park. My own wings feel incredibly light as they, too, trail behind me. It’s like I’ve lived with them my whole life.
I follow Deacon to another picnic area. There’s a crowd of people gathered around a food truck like a flock of vultures. Others lounge on the grass or play games with their children. No one pays us any attention, which is good, considering we have gigantic wings poking out from our backs.
Still waiting for an answer, I skip in front of Deacon and walk backward. “So. You were saying?”
He lets out a deep, frustrated sigh. “Is this what working with you is gonna be like, you annoying the fuck outta me?”
“It all depends on how you treat me.”
He narrows his eyes into cutting slits. “Get out of my way, porn star.”
The insult boils my blood a little, but I let it slide in the name of ‘Give me some answers, dang it!’, and reply derisively, “Not until you explain what you meant earlier, coffee boy.”
“You better move,” he growls, coming to an abrupt halt, “or I’ll fucking move you myself.”
I’m obviously hitting a nerve with him: that much is apparent, judging by the slight tinge coloring his face. I also have no doubt that he will physically shove me out of the way if he has to. But I hold my ground. I can’t let him bully me like this.
“Why do you hate me so much?”
He takes a step back as if startled by my question. “Hate you?”
“Yeah. Like stab me in the eye with a fork kind of hate. One minute you’re okay, the next you wanna throw me off a cliff. I haven’t done anything wrong.”
At least, not that I can think of.
Deacon has despised me from the moment he laid eyes on me.
“It’s not that I hate you,” he finally answers, after a long, strained pause. “I’m just tired of people taking things from me, is all.”
“Taking things from you? But I haven’t taken anything.”
His deadpan expression speaks volumes. Gosh, he’s so infuriating!
“I’m not a thief,” I growl, balling my hands into tight fists. I can pretty much deal with a lot of things, but I have zero time for liars. Dad lied to Mom about his affair, which he had for over three years, and it nearly destroyed her when she found out. And lying is like stealing, and all thieves are liars, and I. Am. Neither.
Deacon’s eyes briefly search my own, then he spins around and drops onto a nearby bench. His wings take up most of the space, so I climb onto the armrest and face him. Waiting. My eyes bulging in their sockets.
He lets out a quiet laugh and shakes his head. “You weren’t the only one who could see dead people. I could, too. That’s why Death chose me.”
I nod. “Okay, that’s one mystery solved. Now I get ‘why us.’ But that still doesn’t explain…”
“If you’d shut up, I’ll tell you,” he snaps.
Glaring at him, I cross my arms. “Fine. So tell me.”
Deacon sighs. “I was always the freak. The weirdo. Nobody, including my family, wanted anything to do with me. They accused me of lying, or of trying to get attention. I finally just learned not to tell anybody that I could see dead people, even when it scared me shitless. But word got around, you know? Somehow the whole school found out about ‘Freaky Deaky’ and I was bullied so bad that I had to drop out. Getting a job in my small town was even worse. No one wanted to hire a nutjob.”
He runs a hand through his hair and looks away from me. “I honestly thought I was the only person who could see the dead. I never met anybody else who could do it. I even thought I was crazy for a while, and then I started to wish I would go crazy, because then maybe it would stop. But it never stopped.”
I understand what he’s saying. My dad and the rest of my family never believed me that I could see dead people. Only Mom and Mackenzie did. Everybody else thought I was nuts, or a liar, or both. Even Katie had her doubts, though she never repeated them after the argument we had on my sixteenth birthday about it. Hardly anyone showed up to my party because they all thought I was crazy.
He keeps talking. “When I woke up on that beach, and when I was taken to Death, I thought maybe my life finally had a purpose. Something that made all the bullshit worth it, you know? I finally rated. Well, that lasted exactly three days, until you came along, somebody else to co
me and take it all away. The only prize I ever won, the only thing that ever made me feel proud of my ability. Now I’m dead, and they’ve brought you here to make sure that I go back to having nothing.” He glares and sighs, looking both angry and heartbroken at the same time. “Back to being nothing. I thought I was going to be Death’s apprentice…but apparently I wasn’t good enough for that, either.”
I feel terrible, and while this doesn’t excuse how awful he’s been to me at times, I tell him, “You know, I never asked for this to happen. If I could just give you the apprenticeship, I would.”
Deacon’s countenance hardens. He clenches his jaw and snaps his head toward me. “I don’t need your pity, porn star! I…” He trails off and his gaze fixes on one of the people nearby. “That’s my soul.”
He juts his chin toward the middle-aged man playing tag with his children. A red-haired woman, sprawled out on a tartan blanket, watches them with a smile.
“Oh, God. Does it have to be him? They look so happy.”
Deacon unfolds his list, scans, and nods. “I guess I just knew where to find him. How do you think he’ll die? Wanna make a bet?”
“Don’t be so disgusting… I just hope it’s quick.”
We sit, watching him. Nothing seems to be out of the ordinary, but then he starts sweating profusely, and a voice in my head that’s not Death’s but probably isn’t mine, says, ‘Heart attack.’ I’m reminded how cruel life can be.
Then it happens again.
A blast of heat signals the return of the black spirit, the one shaped like a flying worm with long, spidery legs. It squiggles past us and runs a quick circle around the man, then it turns and dives into the food truck. The engine roars, the brakes fail, and the truck leaps ahead to mow down a businesswoman who’d been concentrating on a phone call.
Her phone clatters to the pavement, smashed, and honestly, her body’s not doing a whole lot better. Almost immediately, the black cloud vanishes and pandemonium breaks out.
People, including some cops who’d been standing around and watching for muggers, rush over to the woman to try to render aid. They’re too late. The woman’s soul stands up and looks around, confused, her thin hands patting at her conservative hairdo. She sees us, and her eyes go wide.
“Oh my God,” she gasps. “I was just crushed by a truck.”
The man who was supposed to have died clutches his chest, but the cops see him start to fall and they switch their attention from the dead woman to the dying man. One of them stabilizes the man while the other one calls an ambulance, and it’s clear that guy is the luckiest dude on earth. He dodged a great big ugly bullet…and that bullet went off course and hit this poor lady right between the eyes.
Deacon goes over to her. “What is your name?”
“Patricia Harper,” she says. “Wh…are…are you angels?”
“Something like that,” I tell her, trying to appear friendly.
“You need to come with us,” Deacon says. He looks around anxiously, and I’m worried, too. At any moment, that black cloud or spirit or whatever it is could come back, and something tells me that we really don’t want to be around when it does. Patricia nods to Deacon, and we head back together.
When we arrive in the Plainlands, Death is sitting at his desk, frowning in concern. Zeus and Hades flank him like two majestic statues.
A whoosh of hot air suddenly sweeps over me, and Gabriel swoops down from the stairs and lands with a bang in front of the desk. The floor quakes underneath us. He casts Patricia a fleeting, but stern look, and the fear marring his beautiful face causes my breath to hitch. For just a moment, his eyes are crimson, like ruby shards that cut into me, not at all their usual blue.
“What did they say, Gabriel?”
“It was Lucifer,” he answers, turning toward Death. “He has broken the truce.”
“What truce?”
It’s Deacon who voices the question before I get a chance to.
“The truce I had with Lucifer,” Death replies curtly, peeling his gaze from Gabriel and training his eyes on Patricia. “Is this another interference?”
I open my mouth to answer, but Deacon cuts me off again. “Someone intervened again.”
“More like something,” I add, frowning at Deacon. “We didn’t get a proper look at it. Everything happened so quickly.”
“This thing,” Gabriel echoes in a dangerously low voice, as if he’s trying with great difficulty not to lose his temper. “What did it look like?”
My reply is instant. “Like an elongated, flying black shadow.” My skin crawls at the memory. If nightmares could have a physical form, I’m certain it would look like that creature.
Deacon nods grimly. “She’s right. My soul was gonna have a heart attack, then this stupid thing interfered. Next thing we know, the food truck was flattening Miss Harper here into a pancake.”
Patricia holds out her hands, one of them folded around her cell phone. “I don’t mean to interrupt you guys, but like, I have a board meeting to go to…”
Everyone stops and stares at her.
Hades sniggers, shaking his enormous head. “I think you’ll have to postpone your meeting, sweetheart.”
Patricia is having none of it. “No, no, no. I’ve worked my ass off arranging this. Do you have any idea how hard it is to arrange a meeting between twenty-four different calendars? I need to attend. There’s no question about it. Also, did that dog just talk to me or am I going crazy?”
“You’re not crazy,” Deacon states dryly, “but you are dead.”
The woman lets out what can only be described as a strangled squeak. Before she can make another sound, Death rises from his desk.
“Deacon, I want you to escort Patricia down to earth and handle any unfinished business she may have. Sacha, you’ll go with Gabriel to investigate this interference. I want the demon responsible brought to me.”
Gabriel nods and turns to Patricia. He points to the pink belt draped around her thin waist. “May I?”
With blatant reluctance, Patricia removes the belt and extends it to him. Zeus trots over and sniffs the item, hoping to catch the demon’s scent. At least, that’s what I think he’s doing. Either that, or he’s got a penchant for Chanel.
I turn to Gabriel. “So, is this like demon hunting or…?”
“It’s exactly that.”
“And now you’re my hunky partner?” I wiggle my eyebrows suggestively.
He gives a crooked smile. “Shall we get going, beautiful?”
Gah, he called me beautiful!
I pretend to roll up my sleeves. “I’m ready, baby. Let’s do this!”
“Sacha,” Death whispers, his voice uncharacteristically quiet. “Please be careful. Gabe, I’m trusting you with protecting my apprentice. You know how troublesome these demons can be.”
Gabriel’s face tightens, just for a second. “Oh, I know.” Turning to me, he puts on a smile and my heart skips a beat. “Are you ready?”
“I’m coming with you.”
It’s not Deacon or Death, or even Patricia.
It’s Ryan.
“You’re back!” I squeal and run into his arms as he hops off the stairs. “Are you an angel now?”
Ryan squeezes me to his chest, then sets me on the floor. “I’m more like the team water boy. Nice wings, by the way.”
Gabriel claps Ryan on the shoulder. “I agreed to train him. Who knows? Maybe in a few years he’ll get his wings, then he’ll become a Messenger of the Higher Power.”
“What exactly is it you’re doing up there?” I ask Ryan, but Gabriel takes me by the elbow and steers me away.
“Come on, you. Time to hunt demons.”
“The three amigos.”
“Four amigos,” Zeus corrects me, following us.
I grin, surprisingly excited about the turn of events. Demon hunting should probably make me feel a little nervous. But honestly? I can’t wait!
Gabriel takes my hand, and before I know it, we’re back on earth
.
The buildings are narrow and pushed tightly together, with cobbled sidewalks and quaint, European windows. There’s a romantic, picturesque feeling about this place, but the rain clouds gathering overhead don’t bode well.
I swirl around, looking for signs. “Where are we?”
Zeus sniffs the air. “Edinburgh, I believe.”
No. Friggin’. Way!
I’ve always wanted to visit Scotland. Being undead definitely has more perks than I thought. It’s a pity we’re here on business, though. I wonder if shortbread will also taste like sand?
Gabriel looks around, and his perfectly-formed nostrils flare. It’s like he’s a bloodhound following a scent. He turns to me.
“Walk with me,” he requests. To Ryan, he says, “Please stay back for a moment.”
My favorite football player hangs back with Zeus, and I follow Gabriel as he walks. I’m super tempted to touch his wings, but I don’t know if that would be welcome, or too forward, or intrusive… I suppose it would be like touching someone’s hair without asking. I keep my hands to myself.
“I was sort of hoping we wouldn’t have so much company on this excursion,” he admits. He stops and takes another sniff at the air, then sighs.
“Why’s that?”
He turns those extraordinary blue eyes on me and smiles. My knees feel like jelly. “Because I’d really like to have you to myself for a while.”
“Oh…wow…” I say, because I’m totally brilliant.
His smile widens, and his bowed lips look so kissable I’m distracted. “I was sort of hoping that maybe we could get together on earth sometime, go to a movie…maybe a play…”
“Are you asking me on a date?” I try not to grin like an idiot.
He nods his blond head. “I am.”
I blush so hard I almost think my face is going to explode. I start to stammer an answer, but then I see another winged figure and my words die in my throat. He’s a gaunt man, and he’s dust gray from his head to his feet—hair, skin, wings, clothes, everything. He’s following a man down the street, staring at him with a fixed, rapt expression.
“What is that?” I ask instead, my body still on fire from his words.
Grim (Death's Apprentice Book 1) Page 8