Gabriel crossed himself as we approached the altar. “I hope we’re not too late.”
“Too late for what?” I turned to face him. “Saul never mentioned anything about divine intervention. Why would this monk be on our docket if death were not his fate?”
“Living or dead, proper care is required for the holiest of souls.” Gabriel gave me a scolding look that only encouraged my own to become more pointed.
“There is no special treatment for prized souls on Saul’s ship that I’m aware of.”
Gabriel scowled. “There should be. This monk is worth more than all the souls thou hast harvested thus far combined.”
“That wouldn’t be hard to accomplish,” I said under my breath as I looked away from him and examined the cathedral with a more observant eye, taking in the doors tucked in the corners of the room.
“This way.” Gabriel moved ahead of me, his wings fluttering lightly as he tried to fold them tighter against his back. As he passed a nun seated near the center aisle, a tender sigh fell from her lips, as if she could sense the celestial presence and it had granted her some sliver of peace.
Gabriel passed through one of the heavy wooden doors at a back corner of the sanctuary. I followed him a step behind. It took a moment before the dim room on the opposite side of the door came into focus. When it did, I almost retreated back the way we’d come in. The only thing stopping me was Gabriel.
The angel’s wing space had doubled, as if he were intentionally blocking off my exit. “There he is,” he whispered, nodding at the modest bed in the corner.
Stone walls pressed in all around us, and the room seemed to shrink the longer we stayed in it. A single candle on a bedside table lit the monk’s ashen face, his collection of wrinkles throwing off the kind of shadows that painted false demons. The room felt warm. Too warm. It was as if that tiny candle was burning hellfire. I could feel its heat filling up my lungs.
My palms began to itch, the way they always did when a trapped soul was nearby. Not that I would admit that to Gabriel. “Art thou so sure that Saul has not already harvested this man?” I said, struggling to keep my voice even.
Gabriel touched my shoulder again, doubling my anxiety as he urged me closer to the bed. “No, his spirit still clings to his earthly form. Can thou not sense the beacon of his soul? Does it not call to thee, not stir some primal compulsion?”
I swallowed and dug my heels into the stone floor. “Does it call to thee? Dost thou wish to free this holiest of souls?” My breath had become labored, and there was no hiding it now.
“I cannot,” Gabriel answered. His hand tightened on my shoulder, but he stopped pushing. “Thou must do this which thee wast intended to do. This man’s death, and thine own life, depend on it. Saul’s good name and Peter’s wrath are hinged on it as well.”
“Where is Saul?” The question was my last distraction, a postponement that I was hoping would give my nerves the needed time to steel themselves against the impossible.
“I’m sure he had good reason for abandoning this charge,” Gabriel said. “But the answer will come in due time. This moment belongs to another.” He nudged me again, softly this time, and I stepped forward of my own accord.
The monk looked smaller now that I was so close, but that didn’t seem to make a difference to my heart. It rattled against my ribcage, begging me to turn back. But I couldn’t. The itch in my hand was now a burning sensation. My fingers clenched and unclenched, as if waiting for a command.
This task was engrained in the soul matter I’d been crafted from. Why was I having such a hard time letting nature take its course? I wanted to scream the question at the sky, but I could taste the answer well enough.
I was afraid. All I had experienced in my short life had left me wanting—had left me feeling unwanted. By Craig. By Saul. By the mortal world I was cursed to toil in without touching.
What if the souls were repelled by my touch as well? What would become of me then?
“That’s it,” Gabriel whispered behind me.
My hand had migrated closer to the bed, an inch at a time, until it hovered just over the monk. A shimmer of blue soul matter bubbled below the surface of his chest, peeking past his black habit. It tugged at me like a magnet. I resisted, balling my hand into a fist as I pulled it away.
“I shouldn’t be doing this without Saul’s permission,” I said, glancing back at Gabriel. “He is mine mentor, and I am sworn to obey him.”
Gabriel’s wings fluttered impatiently. “He is thy mentor, and thou must follow through when he is in need of thine assistance.”
“I’ve never harvested a soul.” The words left me in scarcely a whisper. I wasn’t sure if Gabriel had heard. My eyes were still trained on him, but they’d filled with tears and my vision was rendered blurry.
“We all must begin somewhere.” Gabriel came closer and his hand found the small of my back. “Will thou make this devout creature suffer all night, reapling?”
I opened my hand over the monk’s chest again and waited for his soul to respond to the nearness of my touch once again. With Gabriel’s presence, I felt surer of myself—surer than I’d felt with Saul’s impatient hovering anyway.
I didn’t have to be an alchemist to recognize that this was the safest, most docile harvest I could wish for my first time. It was a privilege I would not soon encounter again, I realized as my mind circled back to the royal whore and the cruel streets of London that had consumed the majority of mine and Saul’s day.
“Thou art doing well,” Gabriel whispered in my ear. “Just a little farther.”
I had the distinct feeling that he wanted nothing more than to take my hand and push it inside the monk’s body, but I felt indulged enough by the angel’s mere touch. I couldn’t expect him to puppet me through the entire event.
I took a shuddering breath and closed the remaining inch of distance, letting my hand rest on the monk’s chest. The sparkle of soul matter broke the surface of his habit once again. I felt it coil around my fingers, the coolness of it spreading up my wrist, like a bar rag soaking up spilled ale.
The sensation wasn’t entirely unpleasant, but it was still jarring. My hand instinctively jerked away, but the soul refused to let go. It held firmly, pulling away from the body as if I’d fisted a pot of honey. Fear spiked through me and I gasped as I backed into Gabriel.
“Hold on. Thou’rt almost there.” His free hand reached around to take the bend of my elbow, and his chest pressed firmly against my back.
I tried to regain purchase on the sticky soul matter, rolling my arm around it like a ship line, and when I felt I had some measure of control, I pulled harder.
The spectral substance reshaped itself once it had cleared the monk’s body, and when it solidified, a ghostly replica of the dead man stood before us. A fond and nostalgic smile adorned his face as he looked down on his remains. “Faithful to the end,” he said, more to himself than to us.
I felt a similar smile stretch my own lips.
I’d done it. I’d finally harvested my first soul. I wasn’t defective or broken. I was every bit a reaper as any of my kin. I committed the stone room and the monk to memory, savoring the moment for the turning point it represented.
When the monk turned to take in Gabriel and me, his expression shifted. It was more curious than fearful, which oddly reminded me of the royal whore. The flavor of psychopomp didn’t seem to matter so much. They both knew exactly where they were going, and though their destinations were very different places, neither had regrets.
“We have come for thee,” Gabriel said to the monk. The words sounded far less ominous delivered from his lips than from Saul’s. Although, his heavenly attire and feathered appendages might have had something to do with that.
The monk stepped closer to us until he was in arm’s reach. “I am ready.”
Gabriel nodded to me and placed a hand on my shoulder. He fetched a coin with his other, leaving me to complete the connection that would take us all
to the land beyond. The monk looked away from the angel and his deep eyes absorbed me. I waited for him to balk at the idea of a lowly reaper taking hold of him, but he didn’t. He blinked expectantly, as if he knew this script better than I. Maybe he did.
I reached out slowly and rested my hand against his shoulder. The motion produced a gentle smile from the man. Then the stone room melted out of existence and we were back at the harbor in Limbo City.
The sky had faded to a dark purple, and many of the reaper vessels had already returned from making their deliveries. The nephilim dock workers had retired for the evening as well.
“Thou should take him below deck,” Gabriel said, leading the way to Saul’s ship. “I’ll prepare to set sail.”
“What about Saul?” I asked as I led the monk up the ship’s ramp.
“What about me?” a gruff voice replied from the cabin entrance.
“Saul!” Relief flooded me as my mentor stepped out of the shadows and eyed the new soul.
“Not bad for thy first harvest, though thou wilt have to become accustomed to the darker specters in due time,” he said.
“Whither have thee been?” I asked, just before his words caught up to me. I sought out Gabriel and gasped at the grin cutting across the angel’s face. “Thou hast conspired against me?”
“Against thee, fair reapling?” he said, bringing a hand to his heart in jest offense. “We have conspired in thy favor.”
Saul’s rough hand gripped the back of my neck and he gave me a playful shake. “I am proud of thee, apprentice mine. Though I would have liked to be present, I am happy to credit this fine feat to the archangel.” He gave Gabriel an appreciative nod.
My heart swelled at his praise. I felt renewed and born a second time, into a life of purpose. I could do this. I could even do this well, I decided. Tomorrow promised more than I could fathom, and I was ready to accept its challenge.
The monk stood patiently at my side, and I felt my gratitude extend to him as well. His gentle existence had made for an ideal christening. There would be many dark souls in my future. I knew this to be true. But it had taken this sacred one for me to cross the threshold.
“Take this one below deck and we’ll be on our way,” Saul said, stepping aside so I could escort the soul to the holding cabin. “If we return in time, I’ll buy thee an ale at Xaphen’s.”
The monk’s brows dropped into a disapproving line, but he held his tongue. I wondered if he’d be as restrained once he met his traveling companions. I followed him down the narrow stairs into the cabin where the rest of our day’s catch greeted him with a mixture of peculiar expressions.
The royal harlot reclined on a small bed in the far corner, twirling a graying lock of hair around one finger. She scoffed and gave him a chiding grin. “What an assorted lot we damned are.”
“I beg thy pardon, m’lady,” I said, addressing her with an exaggerated courtesy. “But we’ll be making a slight detour at the pearly gates before heading onward to thy fiery paradise.”
She pursed her lips at me but seemed otherwise unaffected. Now that I had assumed my place in the afterlife, her darkness fell short of my resolve. I could harvest a hundred just like her—worse than her—and come away unscathed.
The monk selected a seat near the door, next to a downtrodden soul who looked like his last meal had been taken long before his last breath. He wrapped his hands around the other man’s and held them as if in prayer. “Keep faith, brother. We are nearly home.”
I left them as the monk began reciting scripture and joined Saul and Gabriel topside.
The ship’s sails billowed in the breeze. We’d already left the harbor behind and had crossed a wide stretch of the river. I found Gabriel and Saul at the bow of the ship, gripping the railing as a wave sprayed up over the lip of the deck floor. Their conversation paused as I approached, and they met me with pleased smiles.
“Well done, girl.” Saul gripped the back of my neck again, and my heart responded by rolling happily in my chest. Pride was still a novel sentiment to me, but I found I enjoyed it very much. It seemed to agree with Saul as well. Maybe the next hundred years wouldn’t be as grueling as I’d imagined. Maybe I would even come to view Saul as the better mentor than Coreen.
A sparkle of lights broke the darkening horizon, and soon the outline of Heaven’s gate could be seen. Gabriel departed by wing once we neared the port as to avoid being seen by any of his brethren. We reapers were servants of the underworld, the worker bees of this grand hive. Gabriel didn’t treat us as such, but his superiors made life difficult for us all when our friendships crossed social boundaries.
We delivered the monk and a few others into Peter’s eager care without too much chastising, and then returned to the city. As promised, Saul bought an ale for me at the local tavern. It was my first visit, and I was surprised when he introduced me to the fire demon who owned the place.
“Don’t make a fuss,” he whispered to me from behind his pint. “Not all demons live for chaos. Just as not all reapers live to hunt ghosts,” he added as a soul from the Three Fates Factory hurried past our booth.
“It’s what I intend to live for,” I said, setting down my stout drink. I hadn’t thought it possible, but I felt even braver than I had standing before the monk’s unharvested body.
“It is a job like any other.” Saul shrugged and took a long swallow of ale. “Thou hast just harvested thy first soul. It may seem a calling now, and it may for many years to come. But it will not always be so, and in those moments will lay thy true challenge in this immortal life.”
I wasn’t sure what he’d meant by that. Did Saul regret being a reaper? Did he no longer feel the fiery urge to free trapped souls, the same urge that had just taken me captive? His pride in my first harvest seemed tinged with remorse, and I couldn’t help but wonder if he blamed himself. I recalled his words from the bedchamber of the royal mistress.
I know my guidance is not to blame for thine inadequacy.
But did he really know that? Or were his words meant more for himself than for me?
I was feeling too good to spoil the night with my endless questions, and even with his air of gloom, Saul seemed to be in high spirits. So I let it go and drank my ale.
Later that night, and after too much ale, Saul dragged me across the street to the inn he called home. It was my home now too, but I hadn’t warmed to calling it that yet. I’d felt unworthy. Until today.
Saul grunted as we stumbled our way up the stairs to the loft above the stables, while I mumbled apologies loud enough to rouse our neighbors. The nephilim across the hall poked her head out and clicked her tongue disapprovingly, which only spurred me to apologize louder.
“I pray thee, forgive mine malt-worn condition,” I slurred over Saul’s shoulder as he tried to open his front door one-handed.
“Quiet, girl,” he grumbled. “Thou must learn to hold thy drink if thou art to be mine apprentice.”
“Dost thou needest me to hold thy drink?” I asked, my addled brain muddling his words. “Am I demoted to servant girl now? Shall I shine thy boots as well?”
My eyelids grew heavy and drooped closed. When I opened them next, Saul was tucking me in bed. He pried the boots off my feet and pulled a wool blanket up under my chin.
“I’ll do better next time,” I whispered, my voice straining against the pull of sleep. “I won’t disappoint thee again.”
Saul snorted out a soft laugh and ran a hand over the top of my head. “Thou hast not let me down, girl. ‘Tis I who have failed thee since thee were left in mine care.”
“But I have pulled a soul from its earthly shell,” I said, struggling to focus on his face in the dark room. “I’m not broken. Thou hast not failed.”
“Nay, I have,” he said, stroking back my hair. “But I will not again. Thou art an innocent in the twisted architecture of this realm. And I vow to see thee through this century, if it’s my last good deed.”
Maybe I’d been deprived of a mortal
childhood, but when Saul’s rough hand touched my face, I knew this feeling was what I’d envied of the lives we witnessed in the land of the living.
I smiled as his hand cupped my cheek. Then sleep consumed me, and I drifted off into dreams of all that was to come.
DEARLY DEPARTED
“Death leaves a heartache no one can heal,
love leaves a memory no one can steal.”
—From a headstone in Ireland
“Would you look at that.”
There were three men wrestling with the dead girl’s body. One steadied her in a chair, while another lifted her hair so that the last man could clamp a wooden work table under her delicate chin. Her head poked through a hole made into the two hinged table pieces. The men nodded in approval to each other and set to work, sloppily layering wet clay over her face and neck.
The girl’s soul cringed next to me. “My mother’s a loon,” she offered in explanation.
I shrugged. “I’ve never actually seen a death mask being made before. It’s not as glamorous as I thought it would be.”
“Really? This is your first time? But you’re Death.” She seemed more surprised by my confession than her own demise.
“I’m not the original Death, you know. I just work for him.” I shrugged again, and she mirrored me with a shrug of her own.
“So where to from here?” she asked, trying to sound more hard-boiled than nervous. It was the brave new attitude girls were flashing about lately. Kansas City was no different than any other speakeasy city of the twenties.
“You want to know if you’re going to Heaven or Hell, is that it?” I laughed.
She folded her arms. “Just between us girls, tell me, does Hell have the better hooch?”
“Just between us girls, I don’t go out drinking in Hell.” I took her arm and flipped my coin, whispering the coordinates for the harbor in Limbo City, and we disappeared from the mortal world.
The girl, Ruth Summerdale, as my soul docket stated, had been bumped by a jealous dame for nothing more dire than sitting on the wrong fella’s lap. Alcohol has a way of giving courage where it’s not needed. It was little wonder that the human realm was so up in arms trying to do away with it. Her mother had been a dabbler in the occult, but her father’s family was strictly Catholic, so she had been baptized. She was getting into Heaven by the skin of her teeth, which was probably why she was my cheapest fare of the day. She was also my most favorite fare of the day.
Limbo City Lights (Lana Harvey, Reapers Inc.) Page 2