Scythe

by M K Mancos

  Samson dipped his head in acknowledgment then disappeared through the wall.

  Josiah stepped back with his hand on his chest. He cast a glance at Keely, who acted like she’d not seen a live magic show in front of her.

  “He’s done that in front of you before?”

  Keely nodded. “Wait until he grabs your hand when he does it. It’s kind of creepy the first time you look down and realize you’ve gone stealth.”

  “I don’t know how you handle it sometimes. I really don’t.” Honestly, it scared the hell out of him, knowing that heaven was closer than most people realized. That powerful beings with divine powers walked among humans all day, every day. It was heavy stuff.

  Five minutes later, Samson came out of the office, looking as if he’d gone a full ten rounds with the champ. A cut on his cheek bled, his lip was split, his robe was ripped and hanging off his shoulders. The cowl dangled by a thread.

  “Samson! Oh, my God. What happened?” Keely hurried to him as he leaned against the building, taking deep breaths from his open mouth.

  His sickle hung from limp fingers.

  “One of Death, Inc.’s agents was there. We fought over the right to Scythe.” He rubbed at his lip then spit on the sidewalk. It was such a human thing to do; the action disturbed Josiah more than he cared to admit.

  “Who got the body?” Keely glanced back over her shoulder at the building.

  Samson’s blue eyes went triumphant, but he didn’t boast of his victory. He pushed off from the building, snapping his fingers for Pugsley to follow. “Good job, my four-footed friend. You saved that poor soul.”

  Pugsley looked up at Samson and gave a sharp bark.

  When they were back in the car, Samson leaned forward, putting his arms on the backs of Josiah and Keely’s seats. “I did do more in there than save a soul. The agent sent to Scythe disappeared into the ether through the storage room. I followed and came out in a barbershop.”

  Josiah glanced in the rearview mirror to see if there were any old-time barber’s poles noticeable in front of any of the storefronts. “There weren’t any barbershops back there. Were there?”

  Samson shook his head. “Moving through the ether isn’t the same as moving down streets here. You can go in at one point and come out anywhere in the universe.”

  Great, something more to worry about.

  Josiah mentally prepared himself to ask his next question. “Where was this barbershop then?”

  “Jersey City.”

  At least it was close.

  27

  Ed’s Cuts was located in Jersey City, down from a Catholic church and a row of residential houses that had been turned into businesses. The place was closed for the evening. The lights off and windows dark.

  As Josiah parked the car, Keely looked out the windshield at the area, wondering why such a seemingly normal middle class area had become the focal point of Death, Inc.

  A swish of a long, black coat caught her attention as the person moved from concealment in a dark crevice to go around the building out of sight.

  “Josiah.” Keely hit his arm then pointed to the fleeing darkness.

  “Was that Midnight?” Josiah threw the car in park then hit the button on his seatbelt in one quick motion. “Let’s go.”

  Samson was already at the building, scanning the area. “He’ll not have gotten far.”

  Josiah jiggled the doorknob. “The only way Keely and I are getting in there is going to be as a B and E. I’ll go around back and see if there’s another way in. Samson, you go in and see if we’ve got the right place.”

  Keely had a bad feeling about this. Why would an agent of Death, Inc. flee to a barbershop? What was the significance of this place?

  She leaned forward, cupping her hands around her eyes to block out the light. It looked like a regular barbershop to her. The appropriate chairs, sinks, dryers, products stood in wait of customers. Nothing seemed extraordinary or out of place. But there were things her training had not yet taught her. Being able to discern otherworldly beings when they weren’t visible was one of them.

  Samson stepped through the solid wall into the building.

  “Do you see or sense anything, Samson?”

  “Yes. This place is akin to a live volcano at the moment. There’s much activity under the surface, but none you see.”

  “We should stay together. Josiah won’t be able to protect himself if an agent of Death, Inc. gets to him.” Keely started around the building, not waiting for Samson’s answer to filter through the ethereal to her.

  Josiah stood at a door that had been knocked off the hinges.

  “Did you do that?”

  He shot her a look of offense. “No. Just because I tore yours off the hinges doesn’t mean I go around making a practice of it.”

  She scanned the twisted metal that had once held the door to the frame. “It sure looks like your handiwork.”

  Pugsley gave a couple of sharp barks then ran forward into the darkness.

  “Goddamn dog,” Josiah said under his breath. “Where are you going?”

  Keely followed behind Josiah as they started after Pugsley. She’d never felt more like a Scooby Doo character in her life, complete with bad music and canned laughter as background. Wait. That wasn’t canned laughter.

  She pulled on Josiah’s shirt. “Do you hear that?”

  “I’m trying to ignore it.” Josiah took her hand and pulled her along. “Let’s not stay in one place too long, OK?”

  They moved deeper into what had once been a storage room, but now resembled a corridor straight into hell. Damn, but she’d stayed up one too many nights watching old Hammer films.

  All around them the eerie sounds of laughter echoed off the walls. A dark shape moved ahead of them, too tall to be Pugsley. Keely clutched Josiah’s hand tighter.

  She closed her eyes. “Tell me when it’s over.”

  Josiah stopped suddenly and she trod on the back of his foot, taking his shoe off his heel. “Stop that!”

  “Sorry. I’m scared.” Actually she was petrified and her heart had decided to become one with her larynx, but she refrained from telling Josiah that bit of information. She was the professional here after all.

  He pulled her down behind what looked like huge wooden packing crates. His lips found hers for a brief, hot kiss. “Baby, I’m as scared as I’ve ever been in my life and I’m not too macho to admit it. But we have to work smart here. Stumbling around like Shaggy and Velma in the dark isn’t going to help us any.”

  Keely couldn’t help it. She giggled.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “I was just thinking of Scooby Doo.” She covered her mouth so any employees of Death, Inc. wouldn’t hear her.

  Josiah kissed her forehead. In the darkness, she could almost make out the flash of his white teeth. “I swear if we get out of this alive, I’m proposing to you.”

  Her breath kind of caught when he said it so matter-of-factly. “Yeah, well, if we get out of here, I’m going to hold you to it.”

  The crate they were behind moved as someone passed by.

  “Shhh,” Josiah said in her ear.

  It moved again. The click of toenails on concrete came closer. A big wet tongue licked Keely’s arm. Pugsley’s noisy breathing filled the area.

  “I can’t believe you were hiding from Pugsley.” Josiah’s voice dripped with mock disgust as he pushed to his feet.

  “I was hiding?” She shot up too, just as a big black ball of nothingness moved from one side of the room to the other. “It’s a Reaper.”

  “I know. I’m still trying to forget my last brush with one.” He took her hand again as the Reaper glided away from them and through what looked in the dim light to be a doorway. “Come on. Let’s see where he’s headed.”

  Keely unfastened the flap of her sickle pouch. “Let me go first. If we catch up, he might turn on us. Your gun is going to be useless.”

  “Don’t remind me.”

  They fo
llowed behind the Reaper as it moved farther into whatever abyss the storage room had been pulled. As they grew closer to the source of the laughter, it changed in tone. The high, shrill quality flattened into wails. It wasn’t the maniacal sound of the damned, but agony of lost souls.

  “Oh God, Josiah. I think we found them.”

  They passed through an archway into a great space devoid of both light and hope. The sucking pit of despair pulled at her feet like quicksand. Where in the hell were they?

  “Purgatory,” came the answer from somewhere in the deepest of the blackness.

  Josiah slid his arm around her waist, pulling her closer to him. “Samson?”

  “Who did you expect? The Brothers Grimm?”

  “In this place, it wouldn’t surprise me.” Josiah’s hold on her loosened a bit, but he still touched her. Pugsley breathed noisily at their feet. The gang was all together, but what good did it do if at least two of them were rendered incapacitated by darkness?

  “I don’t know about you, Samson, but Josiah and I could use a little light on the subject.”

  No sooner had the request been made when a soft golden light illuminated the space—such as it was. From what Keely could tell, the expanse of purgatory was vast. Souls meandered to and fro, lost to the God who abandoned them in such a place.

  “Who’d have thought purgatory was in the back of a barbershop in Jersey City.” Josiah’s dark gaze took in the sad scene before them.

  “This is the only entrance left open. The rest were closed when the Church decided to take it out of the doctrine.” Samson pulled his sickle from his pocket.

  “God takes orders from the Church?” To say she was surprised was an understatement.

  “Hardly,” Samson said. “It was no longer cost efficient to keep it open. Most souls are not beyond redemption. We’ve gotten more into recycling them in recent years.”

  “Okay, I get that.” Keely pointed at the souls before them. “What I don’t get is this… If purgatory is closed, what are they doing here?”

  She never got her answer.

  At that moment, the walls began to close in with darkness. Reapers came from behind Samson, their hands out. Pugsley barked, dancing in frantic circles. Keely held her sickle in the air, waiting for their killing touch to even attempt to reach for her. She’d cut off their deadly hands and stuff them down their gullets.

  The souls between them and the Reapers wavered as if on a celestial wind.

  “This is so not good,” Keely said.

  One of the shadows shifted, making a half turn. Light shone across the face. She knew that mocking smile—would know it anywhere.

  “Josiah!”

  “I’m on it.” He took off up the middle of the disembodied souls, chasing after Midnight like a Super Bowl linebacker on a mission to sack the quarterback.

  “No!” The shadows folded in on them, enveloping them into a void.

  Keely started after him. Samson grabbed her arm, holding her back. “Leave him be.”

  “He’s no match for a Reaper.”

  “But more than a match for Midnight.” With that, Samson turned from her so his back was to hers. In a move that would have made Akira Kurosawa proud, they stood like two samurais about to face an entire army. Their sickles were raised, blades out, waiting for the host of Reapers to descend on them. What was death if it meant they saved hundreds of innocent souls?

  They came.

  The black rushed at them, a raging river of darkness reaching up to pull them into an undertow that would last an eternity. Keely swung out, her blade a flash of golden light in the void. Something hard slapped her leg as she twisted to drive the sickle across the midsection of a Reaper. She had no time to investigate why her pouch felt as if it had another sickle in it.

  “Thank you,” she mouthed to God as her fingers curled around the divine gift. He truly did provide.

  With a sickle in each hand, she slashed, driving forward, feeling the brush of Samson’s back against hers as they fought like brothers-in-arms.

  Bodies began to litter the ground in front of her like stacks of cordwood. The ground was saturated with blood. As she turned her sickle to slash at another Reaper, she noticed something she hadn’t on the one who’d attacked her and Josiah. These Reapers were still attached to their souls. They still had a chance for redemption and salvation.

  “Samson, we have to sever their cords.”

  “What?”

  He hadn’t noticed it.

  “Look at their cords in the reflection of your sickle. They can be saved.”

  “Dearest Messiah.”

  As Keely leaned forward to sever a cord and send the false Reaper to meet with St. Peter, the darkness before her came alive. The second wave of the attack had begun.

  28

  The long black coat was lost to the darkness. But Josiah could hear it beating like the wings of a great, giant bird. If Midnight had any idea the sound alone made tracking him possible, he’d ditch the damn thing. Josiah had no plans to clue the asshole in on the fact.

  Midnight shifted to the right. Josiah reached out, grabbing a fistful of coat. He jerked Midnight back, reeling him in like a fish on a line. Midnight wrestled, trying to relieve himself of the fabric restraint, but Josiah swung him around, intent on not letting him get away.

  Midnight swung with a wild punch. It went wide, allowing Josiah to move out of the way in time. The next one hit its mark.

  Josiah held his side where the punch connected with his ribs. It hurt, but hadn’t been hard enough to break anything. If that’s the way the dude wanted to play, Josiah was more than willing to rise to the occasion. He listened for the rustle of fabric, waited for the air of movement then struck.

  Bare knuckles connected to a hard jaw.

  “Shit!” Pain radiated up Josiah’s arm and planted in his shoulder. Fighting in the dark was a real bitch.

  He didn’t move fast enough and took one on the chin. Striking back, he heard a muffled oath, then another swish of air. Midnight was moving.

  Josiah pursued. He leaped at Midnight’s legs. Playing on a local rugby league had its benefits. Midnight hit the ground with a whoosh of air.

  “I don’t know what kind of freakin’ hocus pocus you plan on using, but for the next few hours you are under arrest. You are totally under arrest.” He pulled the handcuffs from the clip on his belt and snapped them around Midnight’s wrists tighter than necessary. “Please give me a reason to use excessive force. I’m begging you.”

  Midnight said nothing, but looked as if he was going to burst into tears and ruin his eyeliner.

  Josiah pulled him up by the scruff of the black duster and Mirandized him.

  Regardless of being a dead man, Midnight aka Thomas Egan was solid and real and mixed up in something that he had no way of getting himself out of. This was going to be one interview Josiah looked forward to.

  He took his cell phone from his belt and dialed the local police. It’d be easy to square the arrest with them. But how in the hell was he supposed to find his way back to the damn street? His phone stared blankly at him. Figures purgatory didn’t get cell service.

  A snuffly noise rooted around Josiah’s feet. “Lead us out of here, Pugsley.”

  The dog trotted ahead of them as if he were the grand marshal of the freak show parade. There was going to be a very special trip to PetSmart in that dog’s future. He’d done more than good today.

  “Pugsley,” Josiah called.

  The bulldog stopped and turned, his head canted to the side.

  “Good work, boy.”

  Pugsley nodded a few times then turned around to lead them out of the storage area.

  They were on the street when a Jersey City police car rolled by. Josiah flagged the car down and flashed his badge, identifying himself.

  “Do me a favor and take this punk to a holding cell. Call the Water Point Station Police and ask for Detective Shelia Dobbins. I’ve already read him his rights, but feel free to give hi
m a twofer.”

  The cop opened the back of the car and placed Midnight in the back.

  “Be careful with him. He has some really creepy friends.” With that, the car door slammed and Midnight rolled away into the night.

  “Come on, Pugs. Let’s go find Keely and Samson and see how they’re doing.

  Keely and Samson were standing in puddles of blood that splashed over their shoes. The stench of death hung heavy in the air. Sweat ran down her back and arms. It trickled into her gloves, making it hard to keep a hand on the dual sickles.

  Keely braced her legs as best she could on the slippery floor as the wave of Reapers washed over them. Disbelief made her draw in a stale gulp of air as the second group of Reapers began to attack the first.

  “They’re ours, Samson.”

  “So it appears.”

  If the Reapers were reaping, Keely was going to do the job she was trained for and send the departed employees of Death, Inc. to a better place.

  The feeling of being watched had her looking up. It was the jogger from the park.

  “Can you help me?”

  Unsure what to say, or how to help, Keely glanced over at Samson who was still busily dispatching the false Reapers.

  “I don’t know if I can,” Keely said honestly.

  “I don’t understand. I was told to wait here and someone would come for me, but no one has.” The young woman looked around, her eyes not focused on the massacre around her.

  A strange prickling started in the back of Keely’s neck. “What exactly were you told and who told you?”

  “He said I needed to wait for my guide. I don’t know who he was. Some kid dressed like Death.”

  “Dark hair? About this tall? Long black coat?”

  “That’s him.” The woman nodded. “Do I have to wait much longer? I kind of thought being dead would be a little different than just a dark waiting room.”

  Keely wished she could reach out and give the young woman a hug, but her form shifted and shimmered like a mirage. “I’ll do what I can. I promise. Sit tight a while longer and my partner and I will try to get this all sorted out for you.”