Dark Kiss Of The Reaper

by Kristen Painter

  He shifted, causing the side of his robe to slip back and reveal a small silver scythe dangling from his belt. The edge gleamed even in the room’s dim lighting.

  Her blood chilled. Who ever he was, he had definitely done something bad to Edna and now she knew he had a weapon.

  She glanced at the old woman’s lifeless body then back at him. “You killed her,” she whispered, a mix of anger and fear edging her words. “You’re not going to get away with that.”

  He sighed and moved toward the foot of the bed, putting a little more space between them. “The cancer killed her. Or would have in time. I simply reaped her soul before the pain made her life more unbearable than she deserved. Her death was merciful, painless.” He glanced at Edna. “As it should be.”

  Reaped her soul? Sara mentally raised his crazy alert level to orange and stepped back, keeping her hands up. Foolish or not, the stance gave her a sense of protection.

  The door swung open and knocked her forward as the requested security guard barreled in. She hit the IV rack, sending it crashing into the wall, and landed on all fours beside the bed. Her knees stung from the impact of the hard linoleum floor. She cursed softly under her breath.

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Donovan. You all right? I didn’t know you were in front of the door.” Oren, the guard, bent to help her.

  Over 6’3”, he outsized her by almost a foot, but he’d make a good match for the guy with wings.

  He lifted her to her feet. “What’s going on in here? You okay?”

  “I’m fine.” Somehow she’d sliced open the side of her hand. She held it up so the blood would run down her arm instead of onto the floor.

  “We need the police. I think this guy just killed Mrs. Metzger.”

  Oren looked over her shoulder, then back at her. “What guy?”

  Chapter Two

  Sara swung around. The wacko was gone. Gone. How on earth... “There was a guy in here, dressed like an angel. He must have run out when you came in.”

  Oren shrugged. “I didn’t see any—”

  “He must be in the hall.” She rushed past him and looked in both directions. Oren followed her out. Nothing. Where had he gone so quickly?

  Oren put his hands on his hips and looked at her like her brain was on vacation. “I think I would have noticed a guy in an angel suit.”

  Sara scowled. She was not the crazy he needed to be concerned about. “Call the police. Edna Metzger is dead and I don’t think her cancer is the reason why.”

  He nodded without commitment. “Yeah, you better get that hand looked at.”

  “I’m serious. Check the halls,” she commanded and ran for the nurses’ station. “Manda, you see anybody come by here?”

  “I thought you went home?” Her eyes widened at the blood dripping down Sara’s arm and staining the cuff of her white blouse. “What did you do to yourself?”

  “Did anyone run by here? A guy in an angel costume?” She grabbed a few take-out napkins from the desk behind the counter and pressed them to the gash on her hand. He had to be here somewhere. Would he take the elevator or the stairs?

  Manda raised her brows. “Honey, what’ve you been putting in your coffee? Oren came by, but he said he’d been called. You feeling all right?”

  “I’m fine,” she answered as Oren loped up behind her.

  He leaned against the desk, his chest rising and falling with exertion. “Looked everywhere. I can’t find anybody, Ms. Donovan. You sure there was a man in that room?”

  “Positive. He was wearing a robe and he had wings and some sort of curved blade strapped to his belt.”

  Oren pursed his lips and shot Manda a look. Manda clucked her tongue like a mother hen and came out from behind the desk. “You sure she didn’t hit her head?” she asked Oren as she put her arm around Sara. Manda led her to a nearby wheelchair and pushed her onto the seat. “I’m going to fix up your hand, get a doctor to check you over, maybe give you a little something to calm you down. It’s going to be all right, you’ll see. Poor child.”

  Sara struggled a little against Manda’s hold on her forearms, but the woman had too much leverage and too much experience dealing with uncooperative patients.

  She slumped into the chair and gave up. “You don’t understand, he killed her somehow with his grim reaper powers. I’m sure of it.”

  Manda looked over her shoulder at Oren. “Seriously, she didn’t hit her head on anything?”

  “Not that I saw.”

  Manda sighed. “Edna dead?”

  “Looks that way.”

  “Let me take care of her,” Manda pointed her chin in Sara’s direction, “then I’ll get the paperwork started. Find one of the other nurses to go in and confirm, would you?”

  Oren nodded. “You got it, Manda. Feel better, Ms. Donovan.” He headed down the hall.

  “I feel fine,” Sara huffed.

  Manda shook her head and stared at Sara, her chocolate eyes full of concern and motherly compassion. “Girl, you’re going to wear yourself out working these hours. You need a day off, you hear me? This place isn’t going to burn to the ground just ‘cause you don’t show up one day, and that coffee shop can spare you for a day.”

  “Manda, you don’t understand—”

  “I do understand. You’ve got bills to pay. Plus, you’ve given a lot of your time and effort to this place and you feel like it needs you. Well, you know what? It doesn’t need you to be making yourself sick. I know you’re stressed about this mess with Ray, too.” She sighed and shook her head. “How many sick days you got built up, honey?”

  Sara studied the gold cross hanging above Manda’s ample cleavage. “Some.”

  Manda snorted. “Some must mean like a month or two. You take tomorrow off, you understand?”

  “I can’t, I have—”

  “You take tomorrow off from both jobs or I’m going to take you to the psych ward, you dig?”

  Sara frowned. “You’re a bully, you know that?”

  Manda laughed. “Where I come from it’s called tough love. Besides, someone’s got to mother you since you don’t have enough sense to take care of yourself.” She released Sara’s hands but took hold of her wrist. “Now, let’s get that cut looked after.”

  * * *

  Clouds drifted past the estate’s expansive limestone balcony. Flowering vines wrapped its banisters and spilled perfume into the air. Carved columns flanked the house’s arched doorways, but curtains of milky gauze blurred the rooms beyond. The sound of running water lilted from an unseen fountain. Meant to soothe, Azrael supposed. It wasn’t working today.

  His jaw tightened.

  “Why does she see me? How is this possible?” He knew his tone carried more edge than the Fates had ever heard from him. So be it. They owed him an explanation.

  Klotho, the Virgin, set her distaff down and looked up from her golden spindle. The most beautiful of the three, the ever-youthful blonde spun the thread of life. Her shapely brows rose above her sparkling blue eyes, her delicate mouth curving in a subtle smile. “Perhaps she’s a Shade.”

  Normally, facing such beauty made his mind wander. Today, agitation kept his thoughts sharply focused. He closed his eyes for a moment and pictured Sara. “She’s flesh and blood, I assure you.”

  “And you know this because?” Lachesis, the Mother, kept her eyes on her work, measuring life threads against her silver rod. He could barely see her profile through the faded Titian curls surrounding her mature face. From the inflection of her voice, he knew her sea green eyes crinkled with mirth.

  “She touched me.” Heat flooded him at the memory. Unlike his brothers Kol and Chronos, he had kept himself from the lure of mortal flesh. Sara’s touch had aroused an instant desire to lose that control. He could not allow it again. He would not become like his brothers.

  Bellowing from inside, Atropos’ cackle stirred his displeasure. The Crone was the least sympathetic of the Fates, and rightly so, as she was also the one who chose which threads to sever. Alt
hough the Reapers loathed admitting it, she was their boss. Azrael ground his teeth thinking about it. Atropos wielded power enough in her shears. Someday, he would find Nyx, mother of the Fates, and speak to her about her daughters. Or at least one of them.

  Atropos pushed through the gauzy curtains, allowing a brief glimpse into the home’s interior. Her carved-bone cane clicked against the creamy marble tiles of the balcony. “Touched a mortal, did you?”

  “She touched me, but it was nothing.” Nothing but a single moment of contact he couldn’t stop reliving. Sara Donovan was so warm. So alive.

  Atropos settled into a gilded chair beside Klotho. A silver-streaked braid draped one hunched shoulder and more wisps of gray hung about her weathered face. The fatal shears, forged of lightning and etched in runes, hung in their pouch at her waist.

  “Falsehoods do not become you, Reaper.” She shrugged. “But that is not my concern. Nor do I understand why you deny yourself human contact. Wipe the memory and they know nothing.”

  “I will not abuse my power.” What Chronos and Kol did was their own business. He was the Reaper of Mercy. To him, that demanded a certain conduct.

  Again, she shrugged. “I’m too tired to argue your unnecessary sense of morality.”

  He clenched his fists to keep from reacting and took a deep breath. Atropos had a way of igniting his temper that none other did. He’d spent enough time here. He wanted an answer. “What of the mortal woman?”

  Her knobby fingers griped the chair’s gryphon-headed arms as she leaned forward. “What matters is not how she sees you or why, but rather that she does.”

  He scowled. Doddering old manipulator. Always speaking in rhymes and riddles. She was one of the Fates, not the Oracle of Delphi. “What in Hades is that supposed to mean?”

  “Temper, temper.” She smiled, revealing yellow teeth. “Perhaps you should talk less and think more. What you want and what you need are two different things.”

  He looked at the other two women, wondering if they had anything to add. Klotho hummed softly to herself. Lachesis shook her head as though she pitied him. If that was true, she wasted her sympathy.

  Unfurling his wings and letting the Darkness fill his eyes, he leaned forward and stared Atropos down. “I am Death. And Death needs nothing.”

  Back in his own domain, Azrael paced the thick rug covering the floor of his great hall while Vitus, the Shade that served as his butler, ushered in Azrael’s brothers. The life the Fates had granted Vitus in order to serve Azrael had not included a voice, so the man raised his brows, the question of whether or not Azrael needed anything else in his eyes.

  “That is all, thank you.” Azrael paused long enough to dismiss Vitus. The man nodded and Azrael returned to his pacing. The wool beneath his feet absorbed the sounds of his footfalls, but not the mutterings of his brother, Kol, the deadliest kind of reaper, a Thresher.

  “Why am I here?” Kol’s dark glasses hid his deadly eyes but not the aggravated set of his jaw.

  Azrael’s other brother, Chronos, the Timekeeper, rolled his eyes. He sat in a nearby tapestry chaise, stretched his long legs out and tipped his head to stare at Kol. “You are not the only one who’s been called.”

  Kol snorted, but held his tongue. He draped one leather-clad arm over the vast marble mantel surrounding the walk-in fireplace, tipped his head against the wall, and stared at the sky mural painted on the ceiling.

  Chronos turned back to Azrael. “Why have you called us, brother?”

  Azrael blew out a breath and stopped pacing. He glanced once at both Chronos and Kol, then focused on the carpet. Calling upon his brothers was a rare event. Especially Kol. “The Fates have...been meddling in my life.”

  Kol’s sharp laugh split the air. “Finally sunk their hooks into you, huh? Welcome to the club.”

  “In what way?” Chronos asked, ignoring Kol.

  Azrael arrowed a look at Kol. He shrugged and Azrael continued. “They have caused a mortal to see me. One who isn’t appointed to me.”

  Chronos wrinkled his brow. “We can all be seen in our mortal forms.”

  Kol cursed. He had a human form, but it was the same as his reaper form. He was no more approachable in either appearance. For that, Azrael could forgive Kol’s displeasure. Not having a true mortal form must make life very hard indeed.

  “I wasn’t in my mortal body. What’s worse is she’s even seen me reap a soul.”

  Kol’s cursing died away. “Seriously? Why would they allow that?”

  Chronos stood, shaking his head. A tear opened along the shoulder of his ever-aging black robe. A swarm of tiny metallic spiders streamed from beneath the fabric, repaired the rip and disappeared again. “There must be a reason. The Fates have their ways, even if we do not understand them.”

  “Mumbo jumbo,” Kol spat, pushing off the mantel and coming closer. “If this woman can see you as a Reaper, it can only come to a bad end.”

  Chronos slanted his eyes at Kol. “Is that what happens to the women you keep company with?”

  He responded with ice in his voice. “The women who entertain me don’t understand who I am.”

  “Neither do we,” Chronos muttered.

  Azrael held his hands up. “I called you here for help, not to pit you against one another.”

  Kol pulled off his dark glasses, revealing eyes like burning embers, eyes capable of sucking in human souls with a glance. “You want me to take care of her?”

  “No!” Azrael cleared his throat. “No.” He hadn’t meant for the word to come out as a shout. So desperate. So concerned. He rubbed his palm against his temple. The situation worsened by the moment. His brothers weren’t offering the help he’d hoped for. He should have known.

  Kol smiled and slid his glasses back into place. “I’m beginning to understand.”

  Chronos shook his head slowly, his grave expression unmistakable. He clasped Azrael’s shoulder. “Humans have no permanent place in our world, and we have only a brief place in theirs.”

  “At least not for more than a night or two.” Kol waggled his brows at Chronos.

  Idiot. And Chronos was just as bad. Azrael shrugged off his brother’s hand. “You’re both making assumptions based on your own weaknesses.

  Kol’s mouth thinned. “I have no weaknesses.” He jabbed his finger at Azrael and Chronos. “You want to talk weak? You two live like kings with your servants.”

  Chronos tossed his head in mock laughter. “Repurposed Shades do not a kingdom make.”

  Ignoring his brother’s comment, Kol focused on Azrael. “You want to trade scythes with me? Walk my path? I don’t think so. If I occasionally get some small pleasure with a willing woman it’s really none of your concern.”

  “Agreed.” Azrael’s ire cooled a bit. He had no desire to take on Kol’s desolate life. Vitus and the other servants may not be able to speak, but they were a form of company. Kol had no one.

  “I think you should have a dalliance, get this woman out of your system, then leave her alone. Of course, you’re free to make your own mistakes.” Chronos said.

  Kol folded his arms against his chest. “What he said. Stay away from her, or don’t, but don’t come crying to us when things hit the crapper.”

  “I don’t plan on crying to either of you about anything. And no one tells me what to do or how to conduct myself. Am I clear? Now, get out. Both of you.” Azrael turned toward the windows overlooking his perpetually twilight world. Why he’d thought his brothers would offer some help or insight, he didn’t know. As always, they were useless, treating him like a child in need of guidance, not a peer. Inviting them had been a mistake.

  He blew out a hard breath, leaned his hand against the window frame. They lived their lives with great abandon and no thought for consequence. They had no place to tell him how to live his.

  If he wanted to see Sara Donovan again, no one was going to stop him.

  * * *

  Not long into her day off, Sara ditched her pajamas and dres
sed for her shift at the hospital. She may have missed her shift at Grounded, but she could still make the one at Franklin. Her hand was fine. Her head hadn’t ached once. She’d gone for a run, done laundry, organized her DVDs alphabetically, drunk a pot and a half of coffee, glued down the loose edge of the counter and cleaned out her fridge. She was afraid if she didn’t go in, she’d end up at a pet store or the ASPCA. Then some poor feline would be subject to a life of loneliness and obesity due to guilt-motivated table scraps.

  Or worse, she’d drive to Mercy Memorial where Ray worked, find her lowlife ex and get the alimony without her lawyer’s help.

  The possibility she might accost Ray wasn’t the only reason, though. Getting out of the house and getting busy might help her stop thinking about him.

  The Angel of Death guy.

  At work, she’d be too occupied for her mind to wander in his dark, sexy direction. She shouldn’t want to think about him at all considering he might have killed Mrs. Metzger. Although, in his defense, she’d called the hospital to check and found they’d written the death off as cancer-related. There’d be no autopsy. She sighed as she zipped the back of her skirt. Maybe it was the cancer after all. What could he have possibly done to her without leaving a mark and in such a short amount of time? Hugging someone had yet to be fatal.

  So what did it mean that she couldn’t stop thinking about a guy this odd? She pushed her hair out of her face, pulling it back into a loose ponytail before adding small silver hoop earrings. Women fell for weirdoes all the time. Some of them even married guys on death row. Not that she thought she’d hit that level of desperation yet.

  Besides, this guy hadn’t actually been convicted of killing anyone. That she knew of.

  She searched for another reason her brain kept replaying images of him while she slicked cranberry gloss across her lips. He was handsome. But lots of guys were good looking. Maybe not that good looking, but whatever.

  Grabbing her purse off the small table by the door, she focused on what needed doing at the hospital. A few hours later, she was buried in paperwork and charts. When Manda arrived, she gave Sara the expected grief about showing up on what was supposed to be a day off.