Grim

by Thea Atkinson

  "So I have to stop it," I guessed, and I wasn't surprised to hear the weariness in my tone.

  He crossed one hand over the other on top of his cane.

  "Stop it?" he said, and he sounded like he thought I had already made the connection and was surprised to hear I hadn't. "No. You have to kill the necromancer."

  CHAPTER 16

  Kill her. I sagged into a chair. I couldn't do that. How could I? Back in the foster home when I'd had no one, Sarah had been my only family. I eyed Azrael from beneath my bangs. I had a very quick and vivid image of the maniac in the church disintegrating into a cloud of glittery dust that had funneled itself into the top of that cane to remain like that with no sentience, no compassion, no hope. For all eternity.

  I had the feeling Azrael had known all along that we were coming to this point and that he knew I would be weighing out the cost of it all. He looked entirely too pleased with himself, and I was willing to bet he assumed I was going to make the choice that suited him. He thought I had no other choice. But there was always a choice. I just had to find the alternative.

  He adjusted the cuffs of first one suit sleeve and then the other.

  "You're asking for a specific reason, aren't you?" he said, shaking his shoulders into the cut of his suit. "This little necromancer you're so worried about. Sarah."

  "She's my friend," I said desperate to explain. Maybe if he understood, he would give me a way out. He'd let this one pass. He'd help me find another option. "I can't just let her die. I can't just let that thing have her."

  He leveled me with a blue eyed gaze. "You have no friends, Ayla. You only have targets. The sooner you understand that, the better."

  Watching him, I recalled the sad look on the maniac's face when I'd been in the church and he had told me it was over. He didn't want to kill me. He just felt he had to. He had made a choice in that moment to want his wings more than he wanted to stop being a killer. No, I corrected myself. He had made that choice early on and he had reaped what he had sown as surely as he collected the entities he targeted.

  I let my gaze trail to the top of Azrael's cane. I wondered what it felt like to be trapped in there for all eternity. I wondered if that maniac felt any pain or if he was just finished.

  "I'm not like that maniac in the church," I said to Azrael. "He had already gone too far by the time he came for me. He had no choice. I do." I squared my shoulders, stubbornly peering back at Azrael. "There has to be another way. And if there is, I'll find it."

  "You say that as though you believe you still have a choice," he said. "I can assure you, by the end of your days, you'll understand what's at stake. You'll do the same thing as Ozriel."

  I shook my head. "You don't know me."

  He slipped one hand into his suit pocket. "I do know you, Ayla. You forget how well I know you."

  I jabbed myself in the chest with the tip of my finger. "But you don't know this Ayla. You know some angel from eons ago, but you don't know this human I've become."

  "You're not –"

  "I know," I said, interrupting him. "I'm not human. But that's where you're wrong too. I am human. For all of my time on this earth until I end up in that cane of yours, I will be human. And I will not kill a friend. I will not kill anyone. Not for you."

  "That's a pretty speech," he said, smiling. "If you could remember your past at all, I'm sure you'd recall you said the exact same thing when you chose to forget it all and come back again. Something to prove about humanity. Something to prove about the choice you made eons ago."

  He waggled his fingers in the air. "You've had lifetimes to prove what you think you understand, and you've never done it. It's time to come home. Either kill the necromancer, or let her die by her own doppelgänger's hand. She will be dying anyway," he said.

  "You seem pretty certain of that," I said.

  He shrugged. "I'm the Angel of Death," he said. "I know everyone on my list. You kill the necromancer and the doppelgänger dies."

  He stood up as though he considered the discussion over and his business concluded.

  "Isn't that what humans call a two-fer?" He pointed at the doppelgänger lying on the floor with the tip of his cane. "This one makes three. Bonus for you."

  I crossed the room to stare down at the thing. I had yet to figure out why Azrael hadn't collected it up yet. He was the Angel of Death, after all. Surely, he wanted to store this filthy thing in that cane of his.

  "Whatever it is you're going to do with this thing," I said without looking up. "I'm not going to let you do to Sarah."

  "She is supernatural," he said. "And she has proven that she's willing to muck about in the natural order of things. That makes her dangerous. You have to reap her."

  "She wasn't left with any choice," I said of Sarah. "She was just born that way. Her family is trying to use her and she's trying to resist."

  "Weren't you the one trying to tell me there's always a choice?"

  I balled my hands into fists and shoved them into my pockets as I glared at him. I hated he was using my own words against me. Watching me, he pushed one hand into his suit pants pocket as he gripped the cane with his other.

  "Do you want to see what that doppelgänger becomes as a result of her power?"

  I wouldn't answer. How could I? There was nothing I could say that he couldn't counter. Instead, I nudged the thing at my feet with my toe, testing to see how solid it was, if he would suddenly turn into my grandfather's double again.

  It did nothing. I could barely move it. I was staring at it, chewing my bottom lip when I felt movement beside me.

  I knew Azrael had stepped next to me. His shoulder was touching mine and that electric jolt went through me again. Much like what I felt with Callum, except stronger. I felt a strange longing in the column of my throat. As though I wanted to gulp down gallons of cool water. I was thirsty and starving in the same moment. I had to move away so that he wasn't touching me anymore. Then I turned to look at him, doing my best to keep my eyes pinned to the tip of his cane because his eyes were too penetrating.

  I had to back away, get some distance so I could focus. I felt as though I had a fever. Fog was settling around my brain and I had to work through the pea soup to get to the main point. If he was aware of the effect his gaze was having on me, he kept his expression carefully stoic. For some reason that made me even angrier.

  "You haven't answered my question," he said, those ice blue eyes drilling into mine.

  "No," I spat out. "Of course I don't want that thing alive. I'd have to be just as psychotic as that maniac who had me trapped in the cathedral."

  He gave a noncommittal murmur that indicated his own thoughts on the maniac in the cathedral but knew if he voiced them he would put me on the defensive again. He knew as well as I did that I wouldn't want that thing that had attacked Callum and I to be set loose on the world, and he no doubt understood to say so would be to push me too far. Well, it didn't matter. I was already too far on the other side of the fence. And I was tired of it.

  "Your list," I demanded. "How long has Sarah been on it?"

  He waggled his fingers in the air. "A week or so, give or take. But you know how things go. Nothing is ever certain."

  He looked pointedly back over his shoulder at the desiccated doppelgänger who seemed by Azrael's piercing look to destabilize. It put me in mind of fraying papier-mâché. If he was making a point, I didn't understand what it was. I just stood there with my arms crossed over my chest, trying not to think about the consequences of either action.

  With a heavy sigh, Azrael twisted away from me and strode over to where the doppelgänger waited. He tapped his cane once on the floor, but he didn't unscrew the top of it this time. Instead, he waited for the doppelgänger to wither into a pile of ash. Then, he blew on it, dispersing the dust into some whirling yellowish portal that he conjured with a swirling motion of his fingers.

  "Whatever you decide, Ayla," he said, turning to me with a rueful smile. "Remember that you're not human
. Not anymore. You reap witches. You reap necromancers, nephilim, sirens, hell hound, vampires, werewolves, and..."

  It was too much. I couldn't take it all in. Somehow, a simple doppelgänger didn't sound so frightening anymore. The thought that I would have to face things with claws and teeth made me feel as though my veins were shrinking away from my skin.

  "Stop," I said.

  "You're young now," he said, pressing on with an ever-increasing sense of determination. "But you're still vulnerable. What if you had an accident on that scooter? What if tomorrow you choked on a piece of meat? What will happen to you if you haven't reaped your allotment? Are you prepared for that?" He gave the floor a sharp tap with his cane.

  "Dear God," I said, fighting the urge to stop up my ears with the palms of my hands. "Stop trying to scare me."

  "Not scare you," he said carefully. "Just explain to you the sense of urgency. Whether you like it or not, whether you choose to seek them out or not, you are a reaper. You never know when an opportunity to reap will be your last. You don't know how much time you have."

  I felt as though my throat had gone too tight. I couldn't stop staring at the top of his cane and I believed he was watching me, studying my reaction.

  "There has to be another way," I heard myself saying. "I can't do that to her."

  He sighed, disappointed sounding. "Always stubborn. Some things never change, even in fresh incarnations." He knocked the top of my boot with his cane. "If you listen to anything today, then at least listen to this: the things that you inherit from the beings you reap will come in handy. I can't help you if you won't be helped, but at least remember that."

  With that plea echoing around the room, he was gone and I was left with a strangely empty feeling. I heard a sharp pop coming from somewhere beside me as the portal closed and I collapsed into the chair in the kitchen, peering at the spot where it had been.

  It was long moments of sitting there before I realized I was staring at the refrigerator and mulling over his words.

  Nothing is certain. Fine for him to say. I supposed an angel with a supernaturally long lifespan, and perhaps immortality, would see one small life as a mere blink of their eyelids.

  I knew for Sarah's sake, I would have to face the thing that was draining her, but the thought of doing so made me break out into a sweat. It wouldn't be as easy as Gramp's double because she was powering it. Azrael's last plea wasn't the least bit useful even if he seemed to think it was. What I needed was a weapon, knowledge, or any information about how I could possibly beat it.

  I scrambled for my jacket pocket and pulled out my cell phone. I took a few minutes to pack a duffel bag and hoisted it onto my shoulder to carry out to my scooter. I'd exchanged numbers with Callum when we left Sarah at the hospital. I never expected to be calling him at all, and I wasn't sure whether or not he would even answer.

  So instead, I left him a message: the doppelgänger is back and he's pissed.

  That would be virtually impossible for someone like Callum to ignore, which of course it was. By the time I landed in the hospital parking lot, my scooter steaming from being pushed faster than its limit, he was already standing next to his old beater car.

  He looked too tall standing next to it to even be able to fit inside. His jeans were scuffed at the bottom, but he had pulled on a leather jacket that made his shoulders look even broader than they were. For a second, I thought that if he was there, all was forgiven, but then he turned to me and the scowl on his face cut short that little fantasy.

  I climbed off my scooter and propped it up. The helmet caught in my hair as I yanked it free of my head and with a sigh, he reached across to untangle a lock of hair from the visor. It was one moment only, but when his fingers touched my cheek, that spot between my shoulders tingled again.

  "I saw another one," I said without preamble. Best to pull the band aid right straight off.

  His head dropped back and he groaned the heavens. "Seriously? What in the hell is wrong with this town all of a sudden?" Then, as though he had just realized I was standing in front of him, he gripped my shoulders with both hands and peered down at me with intent study.

  "Are you all right?" he demanded. His hand went to my jaw and he turned my face this way and that, inspecting. "Did it hurt you?"

  I tried to shake my head but barely managed the movement between his fingers. He let go my face and pulled that calm look over his expression again. I realized as I watched that it was very much like pulling down a shade over a window. An act, then. I wondered what was in his past that made him think he had to look so stoic all the time. I crossed my arms over my chest. His impulsive inspection of me bolstered my hope he would want to help with Sarah. So at least my insult hadn't diminished his concern for what was going on.

  "I saw it when – when my grandfather –" I gulped down on the words, unable to say how close he had come, and not willing to feel the pain I would have to admit to if I lost him.

  To Callum's credit, he didn't wait for me to finish my sentence. Obviously, as a fireman, he had connections I didn't and already knew.

  "God, I'm sorry, Ayla," he said. "I mean, I knew he wasn't well, but I didn't expect it to be so soon."

  "He's fine," I said, cutting it short because I just didn't want to go there. It was far easier to focus on the notion that I might be able to hurt something than remembering what Gramp looked like lying there on the floor.

  "But there was one of those things with him when I got home."

  I fiddled with the latches of my helmet as I gathered my courage, and there was a long drawn out silence that felt as electric as the connection between us when he touched me. Even so, it was him who spoke first.

  "So?" he said. "I take it that was the one you are texting me about."

  "No," I said. "That one is dead."

  "Dead?"

  I wiggled my head up and down. "And you know what that means?"

  "It means we can kill them," he said.

  I smiled in answer.

  "Then why are we standing here?" He pulled off his jacket, obviously intending to throw it in the back seat of his car. He reminded me of a thug about to throw down. Strangely enough, I kind of fancied that image.

  "I have somewhere to go first," I said and Callum nodded.

  It was a quick trip to the intensive care unit that I was after, and I fully expected Callum to wait for me downstairs in the lobby, but he followed me quietly to the unit. He gave me a respectful distance, staying at least three paces behind, but I knew he was there and it felt good to think I might have some support should I need it.

  I barely dared step up to the reception counter and heard him whispering behind me to go on. I could do it.

  I barely got the question out of my mouth when the elderly nurse took one look at me and reached her hand across the counter to touch me on the arm.

  "He's already responded to the doctor positively," she said. "Asked for a cup of cocoa if I'm not mistaken."

  I couldn't speak for the relief, and as I spun around to deliver the news to Callum I discovered he was already standing there behind me. He spread his arms wide and I stepped into them before I lost the strength in my legs.

  His heart thudded against my cheek in a luscious rhythm, and I pressed my ear into it, enjoying the sound. I was awash in that fragrance of soap and musk again, and it felt so glorious, like life and laughter all at once and when he tightened his grip, one palm against the top of my head, pressing me closer, I wanted everything in the world to stop right there. Wanted it to draw out into one long moment that lasted an eternity.

  Of course it couldn't.

  He eased away from me and looked down with a broad smile creasing his face. "I'm so glad to hear he's doing well," he said.

  "Me too," I breathed out.

  "Now are you ready to go kick some ass?"

  "Hell, yeah."

  It was almost as though some magical angel of death had sprinkled luck down over us because Faye was at the nurses' stati
on when we arrived on Sarah's floor. At first, she wouldn't let us in because it was almost time for her meds, and she would be sleeping after that, but Callum, handsome devil that he was, managed to sway her.

  We flipped the curtain back and saw things almost exactly as we had left them. Sarah was barely coming around, and the doppelgänger was there. This time, he was squatting in the chair beside her bed, leaning away from her as though something was pushing him. He eyed her with a pretty creepy looking glower, and if she was aware of it, she merely stared up at the ceiling unfazed.

  "Sarah," I whispered and flicked the curtain closed behind me. Callum took up station at the foot of her bed. "Are you awake?"

  Those blue eyes of hers trailed from the ceiling to the wall and then down onto my face. She gave me a slow, purposeful nod.

  "Good," I said. "Good."

  "What's good about it?" Callum said. "She's obviously out of it."

  "Maybe that's what we need," I said. "At least until we can get her back to her stash."

  I stole a glance at the doppelgänger in the chair, hoping it hadn't taken on Sarah's facade again. I didn't think I could stand looking at it again if it was pretending to be her. I shouldn't have worried. When I looked at it, it appeared as its ordinary revolting self.

  "Not really an improvement," I muttered and it hissed at me, but at least it didn't move.

  "Watch that thing, will you?" I said to him.

  I dropped my duffel bag onto the floor and give it a wary eye as I started to undress. I tried not to look at Callum as I turned my back and unbuttoned my shirt.

  "I'm going to need you to help me put my clothes on Sarah," I said over my shoulder.

  There was a small sound from behind me that could've been both a grunt of appreciation and terror. I smiled to myself, thinking I had put Callum off his usual arrogant stance. I didn't plan to strip down to nothing, just take off my shirt and jeans. I peeled off the pant legs and slipped them over the top of my feet then flung my jeans onto the bed. I turned around to face him wearing nothing but my bra and panties.