“Easy?” I almost choked on the word. Was he kidding? “Tristen tried to choke me. How was he supposed to be an easy assignment?”
“Easier as in ‘with a less than clean record,’” Azrael said. “To ease your conscience some when you had to deliver the touch. My thought was maybe with a quote-unquote dirtbag, you’d feel a little less guilty when performing your job.”
I mentally slapped myself. Simon had been trying to help me behind the scenes; he believed I was better than this, and I’d rewarded him by screwing up royally.
Guilt whirled inside me. He had been an excellent mentor. The fault lay with me. I was the worst apprentice ever.
An apology hovered on my tongue, but before I could say anything, Azrael crossed the room to stand beside Simon.
He clasped a hand on his shoulder and said, “Obviously, something has gone wrong in your training. Simon hasn’t done an adequate enough job preparing you for what being a reaper entailed. It’s looking like I may have to Release him.”
Release? I balked. That wasn’t what I had expected at all.
Simon paled, suddenly looking sick and so much smaller under Azrael’s weighted touch.
I glanced between the angel and my mentor, my throat dry. “No way. He did a great job. It’s not him. It’s me.”
Azrael ignored me. “You may have not known this, but all your digressions are a direct reflection on his teachings.”
Chest tight, I jumped out of my seat and scrambled for the right words to defend him. He hadn’t done anything wrong. He had been nothing but patient and extensive with my training. He didn’t deserve to be punished because of my stupidity.
“Please, Azrael, don’t penalize him. He loves his job. He’s good at it, too.”
For as long as I’d been dead, Simon was always the golden child in Styx Corp. He followed Azrael’s instructions and considered work fun. It was something I teased him often for. Unlike me, he probably had never so much as bent a rule, let alone break one.
What had I done?
Azrael adjusted his suit jacket, his expression turning all business. “I don’t want to, of course. Simon has been with Styx Corporation for a very long time. That is why I am giving you one more chance to prove his training has been effective. Another slipup like this—just one—and I’ll have no choice. He’ll have to be Released.”
On cue, the elevator dinged and the golden doors opened. Soft jazz music spilled out, filling the dense silence in the room.
I didn’t know what to say or do, so I turned around and walked to the elevators in silence. I wanted to plead Simon’s case even more, tell Azrael that this had all been some kind of awful mistake and Releasing him was too extreme. But any argument died on my tongue the moment Azrael turned a hard glare on me, his green eyes glowing unnaturally.
A shiver ran through me.
“One more chance, Jade,” he repeated, his voice an ominous rumble. “That’s it.”
The golden doors sealed shut, blocking Azrael and Simon from view, and I was faced with only my own warped reflection. It peered back at me, reminding me that his threat wasn’t an empty one.
Simon’s afterlife was now in my hands.
Released.
The only way to get out of being a reaper.
When I had been thrown into this job, I had protested at first. I hated not having a choice in my afterlife. Simon had assured me everyone felt that way when they started, even him, but leaving Styx Corporation was way worse. Being Released, either voluntarily or by force, was something no one ever wanted to do.
When I had asked about the reaper before me, the one I had replaced, Simon couldn’t tell me much, only that he was an older man who had been reaping longer than him. They hadn’t talked much, but one day he was gone, Released, with no warning or explanation why. No one saw him again. Not in any of the afterlife dimensions. Not in Styx Corp.
It was as if he had suddenly ceased to exist.
And now Simon was facing the same fate. Because of me.
Did I consider Simon a friend? That was a good question. Did I? He was the first person, besides Azrael, I had met after my death. He had taught me the ins and outs of spirit doors and portal travel. He’d worked for six long months making sure I knew what I was doing with this reaping business, and I sure as hell didn’t make it easy for him.
Besides all that, what I appreciated even more was that Simon was the only person to encourage me with anything I had struggled with. And I struggled a lot. Still did. Even now, his teachings echoed in the back of my mind, telling me it would be okay. Everyone made mistakes. I would get the hang of it eventually.
Hearing he had gone a step further and had vouched for me to Azrael only proved his kindness and confidence in me. He didn’t deserve to be punished because of me. If I had known, I would have tried harder.
Azrael’s threat had been loud and clear. I couldn’t mess up again.
I repeated it to myself as I took the portal outside Styx Corp. to downtown Fairport and opened a spirit door just outside Oh! Kay’s Pastries. There were two reasons I visited the waterfront town in Virginia often. It was a city with two faces. An old-timey downtown with cobblestone roads, Navy ship museums, and grand brick-faced houses, and on the opposite end, skyscrapers, bustling streets, and big businesses that could rival New York. Not sure why but the city had a pretty dense supernatural population, and I had been here a few times on assignments. The other times were to visit.
That brought me to my second reason Fairport was my go-to city. My only connection to the living world lived and worked here.
Kay was a Medium. She could see and talk to spirits, hence why she could see me when other humans and supernaturals couldn’t. Over the last few months, we had made a bit of an arrangement. I got rid of pesky haunts that had managed to pass through the veil and wouldn’t leave her alone, and she gathered information for me, since I couldn’t touch anything on the living plane.
Unlike with Simon, I didn’t need to question if Kay was a friend. She was. We had met during one of my earliest assignments along the harbor. Being a Medium made her a beacon to the dead, and I had found Kay being harassed by an annoying old lady who insisted she pass a message to her son. A few quick convincing words and a cross through a spirit door solved that problem. And that became the start to an unlikely friendship.
The sweet smells of freshly baked goods and sugary icing hit me before even stepping inside the corner shop. My mouth watered, like it did every time I visited, as did the strange wave of sadness that followed from knowing I would never be able to try one of her handmade pastries. They looked delicious from behind the glass case, all bright colors and decorated with dainty accents. Macaroons, cupcakes, Danishes—anything fattening and drool-worthy, Kay made it.
Against the tall windows were a few tables and chairs, set for two with china teacups and crocheted doilies. Even the walls were painted a pale shade of yellow, reminding me of springtime. All things cutesy and innocent. Just like her.
She wasn’t in her normal spot behind the counter, but that made sense because of the late hour. She was about to close for the night, so I wouldn’t be surprised if she was in the back preparing tomorrow’s special orders or cleaning up. Besides me, the place was empty. The last wave of her typical college student customers must have left hours ago.
As I drifted to the curtained-off door leading to the kitchen and office, a storm of angry whispers sounded just beyond it. I recognized Kay’s voice right away; it was climbing higher as her annoyance grew. The second was a male’s, raspy and coming off as equally frustrated.
“Can you just leave me alone? Please? I told you I can’t help you,” Kay said. There was a clatter of noises, as if bowls or something metal had fallen onto the floor.
“You need to,” the man snapped back. “I need to know who killed me. I bet it was Frankie, that bitch. She always said she was going to kill me, but I didn’t think she’d ever have the guts to do it.”
It didn�
��t take long for me to figure out what was happening. I must have impeccable timing or something.
Speaking of perfect timing, Kay threw open the curtain at that moment and stepped through. When her gaze found me, she jumped back, gripping her chest and breathing hard.
“Jade! Christ, you have to stop doing that to me!” She shook her head, her mass of tight curls bouncing as she struggled to calm down. “We gotta put a bell on you or something. You’re going to give me a heart attack.”
I laughed. “Like a dog?”
She wiped her shaking hands on her flour-dusted yellow apron and glanced over her shoulder toward the curtain. “I’m sorry. I guess I’m just a little jumpy tonight. It’s been…a weird one.”
“It sounds like you have another pest problem.”
She looked behind her again and nodded. “Can you get rid of him? I had two others this morning, but I was able to convince them to leave. This one is relentless.”
Two more? That was a lot.
Contrary to what some humans believed, spirit crossovers—or haunts—weren’t common. The veil between the living and nonliving world only thinned enough for spirits to wander through twice a year, during the solstices, and since it was only the beginning of June, there shouldn’t be too many spirits hanging about. Certainly not enough for three to bother Kay in one day. That was just odd.
“I’ll handle him.”
Walking into the back room, I almost bumped straight into the guy, who must have been just about to follow Kay into the store. He must have seen me pass through the curtain because his eyes widened.
“You’re like me,” he said. He was middle-aged, graying, with tan skin and a thick mustache.
“Sort of,” I said, reaching in my back pocket. I took out my tablet and turned on the search feature.
“Well, get in line, lady.” Anger took hold of the man’s tone again. “The girl needs to answer my questions first.”
I held the tablet up, snapped his picture, and waited as the database skimmed through all the deceased for a match. It only took five seconds to find out who the man was. I reviewed his profile.
Victor Martinez. Age fifty. Human. Cause of death—murder.
“You’re one of those reapers, aren’t you?” he asked.
I nodded as I read through his biography, took out my chalk, and started to draw the symbols for a spirit door on the side of the walk-in refrigerator’s door.
“You wanted to know who killed you, right?” I asked him as the door glowed orange. “I can tell you, but you have to go back and leave the Medium alone. Sound fair?”
“I just want to know—was it Frankie? I bet it was Frankie.”
I smiled. “It says here that it was actually a Will—”
“Will! That bastard! I knew they were sleeping together. They planned this together, didn’t they? To get me out of the way? I knew it.”
I didn’t answer, just ushered Victor toward the spirit door. Frankie and Will’s motives weren’t something that would be disclosed in the biography, but I wasn’t going to tell him that. He could assume whatever he wanted to. What his profile did say was that both were facing jail time for his death. I passed that little tidbit along as he walked through the door, then smudged the chalk with the back of my arm to seal it shut again.
Easy.
Why couldn’t all cases be like that?
When I went back into the front of the shop, Kay was counting the money in the register, head down. It took her a second, but she finally looked up, jumping again in surprise. “Jade!”
“You really did have a hard day,” I said, walking over to the counter.
“You have no idea,” she mumbled.
“If the other haunts were anything like Victor, I can imagine.” I paused, wondering if I should bring up the real reason for my drop in. Best to just get it out and over with now. “Were you able to find out anything about me or my family?”
She shut the register and moved to the store windows to close the blinds. “I told you, Jade, it’s a little more complicated than plugging your name into Google and getting an answer.”
“I know.” But excitement was bubbling up despite myself. “But you did find something, right? What is it? What did you find?”
She reached into the pocket of her apron and pulled out a few folded papers. I reached for them, but then remembered I couldn’t actually touch them and pulled back. Kay opened them and held them out for me to read. I scanned the topmost sheet.
“Two families with the surname of Blackwell. One in Canada and one in the U.S. But I was able to find a Jade B. Well and a Jadee Black on Facebook, both in the U.S. but none of them look even a little like you. Some aren’t even driving age.” She flipped through the other papers, showing me the pictures she’d found of the other Jades. Even at first glance, it was obvious none of these women were me.
“Did you check obituaries around this time last year?” I asked.
She frowned. “Yes, and didn’t find anyone with your name, age, or appearance. Are you sure you’re from this country? I haven’t checked other countries.”
I shook my head. “I’m pretty sure I’m from here. A gut feeling, you know? But I guess we can expand the search to other countries. It can’t hurt, right?”
“Do you have a middle name?”
“Not that I know of.”
Her nose scrunched up, like it always did when she was thinking. “Are you sure Jade Blackwell is even your real name?”
Good point. If they wanted me to not remember anything from my time alive, it would make sense to change my name, too, didn’t it?
My stomach sank with a heavy sense of hopelessness. The only thing I really knew about myself was my name, and now it was possible I didn’t even have that.
Kay pocketed the papers and offered me a reassuring smile. “I’ll expand our search to other countries. That may be all we need. Or, better yet, I’ll see if Laurence can do a location spell of some kind.”
Laurence was Kay’s steady boyfriend for two years now. He was a sorcerer but was listed as a weaker one, a level one. From what I’d observed, he could do a few spells, minor things only, but he was still learning.
Honestly, I wasn’t sure if I trusted him with performing any magic, especially a location spell, successfully.
“Don’t you need a personal object from the person to find their location? That won’t work,” I said. “I have nothing on this plane.”
“Maybe your presence there will be enough. I can even channel you if that helps.” Her brown eyes shined with sincerity. Offering to channel a spirit was big for her to offer. From what she’d explained, she’d only done it once when she was younger, and it had gone horribly wrong then. She hadn’t gone too far into detail, but because of the terrifying experience, she had been too scared to try it again.
If she was willing to channel again to help me, it meant a lot.
“I’ll ask him tonight,” she said. “There may be something more we can do.”
She was trying her best to help, but I needed to be realistic. Even if we could swing a location spell without a personal object, I doubted Laurence would be a strong enough sorcerer to complete it properly. I wasn’t going to tell Kay that, though. I didn’t want to be mean. I liked Laurence. He made her happy, and he seemed to genuinely care for her. They were even talking about possibly getting married soon.
“Do you know if you were a supernatural?” she asked. “What gifts you had? That may help, too.”
“I have no idea.” I assumed I was a supernatural of some kind, since I lived in the dimension for supernatural souls, but I had yet to see any powers hinting to what race I was. Sometimes I wondered if Azrael had put my apartment in the wrong afterlife and I was actually human. There was no way for me to know for sure, not unless I shifted into something with fur or said a successful spell at random. And none of that had happened in a year.
Supernatural origin fell under “information I wasn’t allowed to know about my life”
with the mind wipe. Believe me. I’d asked.
“We’ll figure it out,” Kay insisted. “I’ll keep looking.”
Silence followed, and sadness crept in. I really didn’t think finding out who I was while alive would be this hard. One time I had even tried plugging in my name in the deceased search, like I had with Victor, only to come up empty. I couldn’t help but feel like I was wasting my time and Kay’s by making her do this for me. Maybe I would never know who I really was.
“So,” she started, her tone lightening, “you look like you had a rough night, too. What’s going on in the land of the dead?”
I blew hair out of my eyes. It’s not that I thought Kay would understand exactly what I was going through. I wouldn’t expect her to. She was not part of my world. But if anyone was going to take the time to listen to my concerns and try to empathize with me, it was her, and I appreciated that more than anything. Being surrounded by dead folks daily made Kay’s humanity refreshing. It was because of those things that I wanted to tell her everything. About my assignment and Tristen, about Azrael’s threat and Simon. Most of all, I wanted to ask her what I should do now.
But even if I tried telling her, more than likely, I would be censored. There was only so much information we were allowed to share with the living about the afterlife. Like most things, I had found that out the hard way.
“I’ve had better nights, yes,” I settled with instead.
She gave me a look that told me to go on.
I sighed and tugged at my leather gloves. “I got in trouble again at…work.”
Kay didn’t know what I was exactly, but she did know I was a spirit and could help others cross back over into the afterlife. The specifics were fuzzy because of the restrictions. Once, she’d asked if I was an angel, which had sent me into hysterics. She couldn’t be more wrong. There was nothing angelic about me.
Death Wish Page 3