by Liz Long
“He could’ve already had her soul. Or magicked her from the ground without Allison realizing.”
“Girl, don’t talk to me about magic. No way he got a soul from that distance,” Tessa said with a wave of her hand. I ducked my head in case she’d thrown magic at me in annoyance. I hadn’t meant to provoke her but since she’d been around so long, she did sort of have me on all things magical.
I considered it for a second. “Maybe he’s working with demons.”
“By your chatter, I thought maybe he was here to draw you in,” Tully said, his eyes narrowed in thought. “Perhaps he doesn’t even realize anything about you and his intentions are strictly about the souls.”
“So why take the Reapers?” I asked. “You said people are not moving on.”
Tully shrugged. “They have power demons do not. Perhaps the humans stuck in this life are merely a consequence of taking the Reapers. It seems to me the true purpose is the souls. With no Reapers to collect them, they are - what is the saying? - ‘up for grabs.’”
“Allison could be Brady’s way into the human world, using her to appear normal and get away with murder right under everyone’s noses,” I added. “If he’s working with a demon to take or control Mades—”
“Oh,” Tully said. I paused our conversation to look at him. His widened eyes went first to mine, then Tessa’s to make us understand. “He could be integrating himself in with humans to learn about them and possess worthy souls.”
My right eyebrow cocked up in question. “Meaning what?”
“He may be taking souls of value, those that aren’t supposed to die. Those who are meant to do good things. He could be harboring them for greater purpose or perhaps selling them to demons at great value.”
The three of us looked at one another, stumped. I couldn’t recall ever seeing Tully look so human, his face wrinkled in worry and frustration. The only thought I had was that this theory meant Allison had an exceptional future ahead and that was why Brady was keeping such a close eye on her.
“What about that other kid with the tattoo?” Tessa asked me. “Did he emit any magic?”
“Even if I had felt it, that could’ve been Brady,” I pointed out.
“Draw the tattoo for me?” Tessa asked, getting me pen and paper. I did so, the tiny triangle and its symbols unfamiliar. She shook her head, not recognizing it.
“I thought witches could see Reapers,” I said with a frown. “Why didn’t Brady call me out right there?”
“He couldn’t exactly do that in front of all those traumatized kids, especially Allison,” Tessa reminded me. “Or maybe he’s only part-witch.”
“That would explain why he’s reached out to dark creatures,” Tully said. “Perhaps he is learning how to become something more demonic.”
At that statement, the three of us went silent, unsure of how to proceed. Too many thoughts ran rampant in my head; I had no idea what to do or how to even begin saving my sister.
Tessa broke the silence. “So…what do we do?”
“We must stop them, this boy and his partner, if he has one,” Tully said.
“But how?”
“We need to get close to her,” Tessa suggested. “Allison, I mean. We have to figure out Brady’s plan and who he’s working with, what they’re going to do to the other Reapers and souls.”
The voice came from somewhere far away. “I’ll do it.” I hadn’t even realized I’d spoken until they faced me, contemplating my offer.
“I do not think—” Tully began, but Tessa cut him off after seeing my face.
“Grace is right. It makes the most sense. She can gain Allison’s trust faster than I ever could since she knows her. I can join in and handle the witch while Grace protects her sister.”
“This is against everything—” Tully tried again but then I did it.
“Say you couldn’t stop us.” I stared him down, imploring him to see reason. “You don’t need to get in trouble for what I do, but I need to save my sister. My family deserves that much. Don’t let her die just because of some rules - rules that shouldn’t apply here, by the way, since we’re all being kidnapped by the underground demon gang.”
“How do you plan to help your family? You know we only appear as ourselves.”
“Yeah, thanks for reminding me,” I muttered. He knew the power differences between Mades and Trues irked me.
“Uh, hello?” Tessa waved her hands at us. “Whaddya think I’m here for?”
“Tully, c’mon,” I urged. “What happens when we’re all gone and the souls begin to back up and get stuck here? Or get taken by demons when they’re unable to move on?”
That reminder got to him. His mouth twitched and I knew I’d won. His face only flickered when I’d struck a point with him. Or been remotely irritating, but this was different. He turned to me, his expression serious again.
“You need to have the utmost calm anywhere near your sister. And you cannot act as yourself.”
“I can do it.” I pointed at Tessa. “We can do it. This is more than just my sister and a demon. Think of how many fates are being destroyed with half the Reapers taken hostage, the other half worried about being taken, and souls being ripped from their destiny. We might be the only ones who can stop it.”
Tully, for a split second, appeared proud that I’d acknowledged the absolute existence of Reapers. We had to keep the natural order of things. It was all that mattered to us, our only reason for being. We shared a look and I nodded at him.
“I’ll have to teach you,” Tully said, his soft voice tinged with sadness.
“Teach me what?”
“How to be alive again.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Turns out, after you’ve lived as a Reaper for three years, you get used to things like walking through walls and passing by everyone unnoticed. Sure, we could all appear in front of people if we wanted, but why bother? It took up energy and it was easier to avoid explaining who you were to nosey nurses. (Some were wicked harsh about their visitation hours.)
The three of us sat in Tessa’s living room. Tessa gathered materials for the spell out of her herbs cabinet while Tully lectured me.
“You must keep the glamour on her at all times,” Tully reminded Tessa for what must have been the hundredth time. She waved at him in annoyance.
“We get it, okay?” I said in exasperation. “Don’t send anyone to the loony bin.”
He gave me a pointed look. “No one, not your sister, nor your parents or friends, can see your real self, Grace. I do not even want strangers to get a glimpse. You know this and you need to tell me you understand.”
His voice was so serious I couldn’t help but nod. If my family saw me, the horror of their discovery would be too much for them to bear. Surely they’d lose their sanity at the sight of their dead sister and daughter, speaking to them from beyond the grave.
Tessa’s gentle elbow pulled me back to the present. “This spell, it makes you appear human again to other humans. You’ll be breathing and blinking again.”
“And I already feel pain when I bump into everything in my path,” I muttered.
Tessa hid a smile; she knew I was still as accident-prone as I’d been when alive, knocking into everyone and everything in my way. I considered going invisible as one of the major perks of Reaperdom.
“The rest will come naturally; you are not yet old enough to forget,” Tully said. “You already wave your arms around when you’re feeling overly expressive.”
I turned away from his tone before he saw my face, but he wasn’t done.
“You must never reach out to them as Grace,” he said, “you’ll have to keep the camouflage on at all times.”
“I don’t exactly want to send Allison to a mental institution, so yes, I will make sure to look…not like me at all times.”
Satisfied, he nodded. Tessa rolled her eyes and stepped in to face me. “I’m an excellent potion maker, Tully. She only needs the spell every twenty-four hours. It helps
that I’m old and powerful.”
Tully looked abashed. “Yes, you are quite talented. My apologies.”
Tessa turned to me with a mischievous glint in her eye. “Say, how about we attend a frat party?”
Tully sputtered. “Wha—no, you will not—”
“Oh sure, that sounds like fun.” I nodded enthusiastically and shared a grin with Tess. She cleared her throat.
“You ready?”
“Yep. How do we do it?”
“Faerie dust of course,” Tully answered.
“You must be joking.”
“Child,” he said in that firm tone that reminded me he never joked. I sighed and waved at him to proceed. He huffed, smoothing the wrinkles in his shirt. “Faerie dust is the key ingredient, another reason Tessa was a good choice to bring along.”
I beamed at him and he hurried on as if remembering it had been my idea.
“Now that she has the potion, she must create an illusion. Just like you make yourself appear and disappear, she can change your appearance. The potion locks it in and keeps you looking that way until it wears off.”
“Sounds easy enough.”
Tully crossed his arms over his broad chest. “And exactly how do you plan to get close enough to Allison to better understand the situation and perhaps warn her about the witch?”
“There’s no perhaps, she’s getting warned,” I said.
He furrowed his brow. “She should not know about supes—”
“No, I know,” I said quickly, “I’ll figure something out. Are we ready to do this thing or what?”
Tully eyed me hard, probably seeing straight through my impatience. He stayed quiet, giving Tessa a brief nod to proceed.
“Stand here,” she said, pointing to the round symbol drawn in chalk on her floor. “All you need to do is keep still.”
My eyebrow arched, wondering what happened if I twitched. She moved on, taking up her witchy mixing bowl. Tessa began to murmur rhymes and toss dust into the circle where I stood. Having no idea what she was doing, I stayed quiet. Would I feel any different?
My back straightened when I felt a breeze. The dust she’d dropped in the circle rose in a small tornado around my feet. My long brown hair moved as the wind picked up; I forced myself to remain unmoving, resisting the urge to brush it out of my eyes. The unrelenting wind picked up. My eyes squeezed shut to avoid dust and my mouth clamped tight so I didn’t choke on it.
The dust fell again and I snuck a peek. Everything looked normal, minus Tessa beaming at me. I looked down at my hands and frowned. That was weird. My skin had a strange sheen to it. I reached for the ends of my hair, finding nothing. I finally found short strands, my fingers raking through the odd feel of it.
“I can still see you underneath the glamour, but it’s a good spell. Only Reapers and the most powerful supes will see you for real,” Tessa said, pride in her voice. “Look, you can see yourself in a mirror.”
Reapers usually avoided appearing in mirrors or photos (I mean, how would anyone feel if they saw one of us in their bathroom selfie late at night?). I hadn’t thought about or seen my appearance since I was alive, as Tully forbade it.
Eagerly, I went to Tessa’s bathroom. My reflection was nothing like my real self. Instead of my dark hair, brown eyes, and pink nursing scrubs, I now resembled a stranger - a young college student. Blue eyes accompanied a bleached blonde pixie cut; Tessa had even included a half-sleeve of colorful tattoos on my left arm. I looked about as far from Grace as a girl could be. I tested out facial expressions. When I smiled, my reflection also grinned, though she looked far more mischievous.
Tully appeared in the doorway to observe us. He stroked the end of his red beard in thought, but remained quiet, letting Tessa take the reigns.
“Your glamour is solid, but at the twenty-four hour mark, you’ll automatically look like you again,” Tessa said. “While I doubt we’ll be apart that long, I’d be keeping an eye on the clock and be ready to turn invisible, otherwise you’ll be Grace again.”
“And then we check Ally into the nuthouse,” I muttered.
“More or less.”
“How human am I exactly? I can’t, ya know, die again, can I?” I asked, toying with the ends of my short hair.
Tessa shook her head. “You’re technically still dead. You can touch and smell and taste just like before. It’s powerful enough that you might be able to feel physical pain, though.”
As though to be sure, she leaned over and pinched my arm. I jerked back, the skin sore from her nimble fingers.
“Terrific,” I mumbled. “No getting into cars then, that’ll just send me into a nervous breakdown.”
Tully grimaced and opened his mouth to protest once more, but Tessa quickly spoke over him. “You ready?”
Tully frowned, but I pretended not to notice. I had bigger things to worry about than a little twitch of pain. Tessa’s spell had worked. Now I had to work up the nerve to talk to my sister after being dead for three years.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Now remember, you’re Evie and like Allison, from Richmond, Virginia,” Tessa told me as she tightened her ponytail.
We headed to the library to meet Allison, a short walk across the green campus. I caught myself marveling every few moments at the sights. Students crowded around the student union, some inside for food while others had formed groups outside in the warm sunshine. Skateboarders and bikers whizzed past us, though there were plenty of pedestrians, too. I’d spent so much time in the retirement home that I’d almost forgotten that life could be so exuberant.
“And who are you?”
“I’m Tessa from Salem, duh,” she said with a wink. “Virginia, that is.”
I rolled my eyes at her and she laughed. The library’s triangular roof came into view and my smile dropped. I was about to talk to my little sister, my best friend, face to face for the first time in three years. I had to pretend we were strangers and somehow coax information from her. How did I do that?
“We’re not going to become such close friends that she believes me when I say her boyfriend is scum,” I said. “There’s not enough time for that and it seems like they’ve been together a while.”
“Since the semester started. That’s about four months, since the Reapers started disappearing,” Tessa answered, her attention on her surroundings.
“How do you know that?”
“She said something about it to her roommate this morning.”
My brow winkled. “And how do you know that?”
Tessa shot me an annoyed look. “I put a listening spell in her room. I needed access if we’re gonna protect her!”
She looked so ready to defend her decision that I let it drop, admitted it would be the quickest way to finding out information. We approached the automatic doors and I hesitated. Tessa paused with me, hands going to her hips as she faced me. She waited for me to speak first.
I wrung my hands together. “What if she doesn’t want to tell us anything? You don’t just go around telling things like that to strangers.”
“As far as she’s concerned, we’ve been her American History study group since the semester started. She’ll talk to us.”
I couldn’t help but smile; of course Tessa had thought that part through. “Okay. Let’s go.”
Tessa snapped her fingers and bags appeared in our hands. I rummaged through mine to see a history textbook, notebook and pens, and a large bag of kettle-cooked jalapeño chips. I gave Tessa a curious look.
“In case you want a snack.”
She knew me too well. I flashed her a quick smile of thanks and swung the bag over my shoulder. Entering the cavernous building, I breathed deep, inhaling the scent. I’d always loved the smell of libraries, like absorbing knowledge through your pores.
“We need to get her talking about Brady,” Tessa whispered.
“We need to gain her trust, like big time. She won’t listen to us or break up with him if we’re just randomly throwing out advice.”<
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“What do you suggest?” she asked me.
Tessa waved to my sister. Allison sat at a large wooden table in the back corner. She’d spread her books around to insure two seats, but most students were at the computers and print stations on the other side.
“See if you can get her to talk about me.” I kept my eyes ahead as I said it, unsure of how she’d react.
Tessa shot me a look, smile still glued to her face. “You sure you can handle that?”
My human side couldn’t ignore the selfish need to hear Ally’s thoughts on me. Part of me even wondered how I’d react, but I couldn’t let Tessa see it. “I’m a Reaper, I’m supposed to be impartial.”
“This exceeds any Reaper duties I ever heard,” Tessa scoffed. When I didn’t reply, she huffed. “Fine, get her talking then.”
We walked over to Allison, my stomach tightening with every step to her. When she looked up with a smile, the knots loosened. Even if she weren’t my sister, Allison had always been easy to talk to. Everyone used to flock to her sweet personality and friendly disposition.
Now that Allison actually saw me, I could take in her face. She’d lost the baby-faced cheeks, but still had the light smattering of freckles across her nose. Her dark eyes, however, aged her, a bit of a hardness around them. I’d seen those haunted eyes in many of the souls I’d guided over. That look belonged to a person who’d lost something significant.
Allison noticed me staring. “You okay, Evie?”
“What?” Yikes! I blinked a few times to clear my head. “Oh, yes I’m fine, sorry. Um, pulled an all-nighter.”
Students said stuff like that, right? I tried to rummage in my bag for a pen to get the attention off myself.
“Hey guess what?” Allison said, tapping the open book in front of her with a pencil. “I found a BAD dropping today!”
My nose wrinkled, not having the slightest idea what she said. Just as I opened my mouth to ask what a “dropping” was (and praying it wasn’t what I thought), Tessa saved me again with a squeal. She nudged me and I followed suit, clapping excitedly for Allison’s good fortune.