For the Birds

by Angela Roquet

  Praise for Angela Roquet’s

  Lana Harvey, Reapers Inc. Series

  "Charming and hilarious...Sookie and Betsy have some competition!"

  -MaryJanice Davidson, New York Times

  and USA Today Best-Selling Author

  "Darkly comic and wildly imaginative. Angela Roquet gives us an afterlife we've never seen before."

  -Kimberly Frost, best-selling author of

  The Southern Witch Series

  “Graveyard Shift is an impressive feat of imagination built on a broad knowledge of world religion. It's also great fun! No small accomplishment.”

  -Christine Wicker, best-selling author of

  Not in Kansas Anymore: The Curious Tale of

  How Magic is Transforming America

  "Graveyard Shift is sacrilicious. Roquet's first book in the Reapers Inc. series will be a huge hit with fans of authors like J.K. Rowling and Neil Gaiman. I look forward to getting my hands on the rest of the series."

  -Lance Carbuncle, author of

  Grundish and Askew

  "Pocket Full of Posies has just enough laughs, lots of mystery, tons of action, some great romance, a cast you can't help but love, and a story that never lets you rest!"

  -Literal Addiction

  by Angela Roquet

  Lana Harvey, Reapers Inc.

  Graveyard Shift

  Pocket Full of Posies

  For the Birds

  Lana Harvey, Reapers Inc. short stories

  Dearly Departed (In the Anthology: Off the Beaten Path)

  Other titles

  Crazy Ex-Ghoulfriend

  Backwoods Armageddon

  LANA HARVEY, REAPERS INC.

  BOOK 3

  Copyright © 2013 by Angela Roquet

  All rights reserved. No part of this book shall be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission of the publisher. Although every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher and author assume no responsibility for errors or omissions. Neither is any liability assumed for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Published April 2013

  Bought by Maraya21

  kickass.to / 1337x.org / h33t.to / thepiratebay.se

  For my supportive husband,

  who dresses up like the Grim Reaper

  at my book signings.

  You big weirdo.

  What did I ever do without you?

  I love you.

  Chapter 1

  “Some men are alive simply because

  it is against the law to kill them.”

  -Edward W. Howe

  There was blood everywhere. It dripped from the bannisters and splashed across the deck floor, pooling near the door to the captain’s quarters, where my trusty hounds waited with their tails tucked between their legs. They were both covered in bloody chicken feathers. Saul looked more innocent than Coreen, but I had a feeling that was only because he didn’t know any better. What he lacked in brains, he made up for in loyalty. This little mishap wasn’t entirely their fault today.

  Kate Evans and Alex Grayson, my two least favorite reapers, lounged against the railing on the far side of the deck. Alex was taller by half a foot, but Kate was the one who emanated confidence, the sort that always seemed to beg or threaten a double-dog dare. She shook her head, tossing her bangs back and crooked her finger, motioning Alex to tilt her head down so she could whisper in her ear. Alex grinned and covered her mouth with her fingertips as I approached.

  Kate tossed her bangs back again. It was a painfully juvenile gesture that I really couldn’t stand. “Your ex-boyfriend stopped by for a visit, but the mutts got hungry,” she said, sending Alex into a fit of roaring laughter.

  Kate had not been thrilled when I was announced as the new captain of the Posy Unit. Not that anyone had been particularly thrilled, but she seemed to take it the worst. She had been on the unit the longest, and I think she had honestly thought that the promotion was in the bag for her. She very well may have deserved it, but it wasn’t my problem.

  I didn’t say a word. Instead, I carefully made my way to the closet beside mine and Josie’s quarters and fetched a mop and bucket. The culprits were still snickering when I returned, until I thrust the mop in Kate’s hands and shoved the bucket into Alex’s gut, drawing a satisfying grunt out of her.

  “Have fun kids. If you’re lucky, there might be some souls left to harvest when you’re done.”

  Kate scrunched up her face, tossing back her long, side-swept bangs again. “You won’t clear that list of souls if you keep us here.”

  Josie Galla and Kevin Kraus, my roommates and fellow unit members, laughed behind me. I hadn’t heard them come onboard. They froze suddenly and looked around the ship, taking in the remains of the chicken that Kate and Alex had set loose for the hounds to massacre. Josie narrowed her gaze. Her upper lip curled back. “What the hell happened here?”

  “A little practical joke, but it’s being taken care of. Think you can handle a little extra work load today?” I raised an eyebrow.

  “Oh, if it means they have to clean up this disaster, then absolutely.” She folded her arms.

  Kate huffed.

  I turned back to face her and Alex. “Better shake a leg, ladies. I’ll be back to check on you around noon.”

  We left them scowling on the deck of the ship and took the ramp back down to the dock, where the last member of the team, Arden Faraji, stood waiting with his hands folded behind his back.

  Arden was a rarity among the reapers, in more ways than one. For starters, he was black. His skin was such a dark hue that it had blue highlights, streaking over his shaved head and across his high cheekbones.

  I think the reason Grim made most reapers white was because his mythology originated in Europe, but somewhere along the way, he decided having reapers of different flavors could be beneficial to the harvesting process. So there’s Jenni Fang, another roommate of mine and Grim’s new second-in-command, who’s Asian; Santos Consuelo, the Latino captain of the Lost Souls Unit; Arden Faraji, a.k.a. the African Posy; and Arden’s sailing partner, Asha Dipika, who’s Indian.

  I wasn’t sure if Arden and Asha were more involved than just being sailing partners, and I wasn’t about to ask. Arden hadn’t said five words to me since I’d joined the Posy Unit. He’d wait for his assignments, give me a nod, and coin off to his first harvest site, just like that, every morning. He wasn’t rude or anything, but he wasn’t exactly trying to make new friends either. He had a solemn, sorrowful attitude about him, but it was hardly surprising.

  The Posy Unit hadn’t been Arden’s first team. He’d gotten his start on the Mother Goose Unit, collecting the numerous child souls that died from malnutrition and starvation in Sub-Sahara Africa. While other members of the Mother Goose Unit were collecting child souls that had had some semblance of a decent life, the child souls Arden collected spent most of their short lives waiting for his arrival. That sort of work takes a toll on one’s psyche, but he seemed to handle himself well, as far as I could tell anyway.

  By the time he transferred to the Posy Unit, the child souls of Africa weren’t just resulting from malnutrition anymore, though their numbers had increased. Thousands of child soldiers joined them in meeting Death. Arden also added adult victims of war and starvation to his resume by joining the Posy Unit.

  Over in India, Asha Dipika also harvested the souls of starving children, as well as a good chunk of the victims from the wars raging
in Iran and Afghanistan. Her and Arden’s ship was a floating contradiction. The hold was equipped with chambers to separate soldiers of various armies, and the deck looked a bit like a carnival, with a carousel set in the center. I was tempted to ask about that too, but Asha’s demeanor was even more solemn than Arden’s, so I kept my mouth shut.

  “Hey, Arden,” I said, coming to a stop in front of him. He was nearly a foot and a half taller than me, so I had to look up to make eye contact. “Think you could make a stop in China today? There’s a factory fire scheduled around two o’clock in Jiansu. It was on Kate’s list, but she’s going to be tied up most of the morning.”

  Arden nodded slowly, maintaining his neutral expression. I sometimes wondered if he was even capable of smiling, or frowning for that matter. Maybe one morning I would suggest that he harvest a strip club massacre and see if I could get a new expression out of him.

  I pulled my handy dandy soul list out of the pocket of my robe and looked it over. “Great. That leaves a plane crash in Tulsa, a six-car pileup in New York, and a gang related shooting in L.A.”

  “I’ll take the pileup,” Kevin said with a shrug.

  “Plane crash!” Josie chirped.

  I frowned at her. “Fine, I’ll take the shooting.”

  With a plane or automobile accident, the bodies were usually pretty easy to spot. With a shooting, there was some hunting involved. Sometimes a stray bullet will find a home in someone three blocks down the street from the scene of origination. Sometimes a fatally wounded gang member will scurry off to die somewhere less public. If that happens, it can take hours to find every last soul involved.

  When the harvests were divided amongst the team, I gave them each a coin for traveling in the human realm. After the terrorist attacks on Limbo City last spring, Grim had deactivated coin travel in the city. Travel was now regulated through a handful of booths stationed at busy junctions, like the Reaper Academy and the Three Fates Factory. However, the dock at the harbor was a free travel zone, so Reapers could take off for work with the roll of a coin. There were nephilim guards stationed at the entrance to the dock, so it was still regulated.

  Saul and Coreen nuzzled against my legs, merging our auras so that they could travel through the realms with me. I waited for the rest of the team to coin off before taking my leave.

  A few months ago, I would have dawdled. I would have done my best to convince Josie that we had time for coffee or breakfast first. Then, I would have found something entertaining to occupy my time in the human realm until a casket arrived at a burial site and I could grab the soul before the body was lowered into the ground. It was a tidy routine that didn’t pay well, but it was easy and there were minimal complications.

  While I wasn’t fond of the unpredictable nature of my new job, the money was outstanding. I was also pleasantly surprised, and almost embarrassed, at how much I was enjoying the new level of respect that came with being a captain of a specialty unit. Not that that respect didn’t come with a heap of resentment most of the time.

  I arrived bright and early at my first harvest site. L.A. was not my most favorite place to collect souls. Of course, most of the souls needing to be harvested there were not in the nice parts of town. Sirens pierced the air. It was only seven a.m., but there were nine bodies lying haphazardly around several jalopies in an alley, spanning between a few buildings that I was almost certain were condemned.

  I looked down at the hounds and sighed. “Welcome to the city of angels.”

  Chapter 2

  “If you die in an elevator

  be sure to push the Up button.”

  -Sam Levenson

  The lobby at Reapers Inc. was always busy. While Reapers Inc. headquarters only utilized the seventy-fifth floor, there were dozens of other businesses that rented space in the executive high-rise. The Afterlife Council dining hall and conference rooms were located on the seventy-third floor. I had the privilege of dining with the council at the last Oracle Ball, just before I found out that I was an anomaly among the reapers.

  A more optimist approach would be to call myself special or one of a kind, but it’s hard to be optimistic about something that could get my head chopped off if the general public found out about it. There weren’t very many people who knew the truth about me. Hell, there weren’t very many people who knew the truth about how Grim was running Eternity.

  From the beginning, war raged in the afterlife. With so many religions forming in the human realm, it was inevitable. The first original believer of every faith spawned the deities, heavens, and hells of that particular religion. In the beginning, there were no boundaries. Afterlives overlapped each other in Eternity, and deities fought viciously to claim and keep their territories and the souls they held.

  Around the time that Islam was founded in the human realm, Grim was out harvesting souls. He happened across a Muslim woman named Khadija. Khadija was the Prophet Muhammad’s first wife, and she was also the first person converted to Islam, making her an original believer.

  Grim seized the opportunity. He took Khadija to Eternity and showed her the mayhem and suffering. Her compassion compelled her to help. Her will and true knowledge of the afterlife gave her the power to tap into the collective soul matter that fueled the worlds beyond the grave, and she created a power hub of sorts, the Throne of Eternity. Grim wrote up a peace treaty, and Khadija separated the afterlives and formed their boundaries. The Afterlife Council was founded to sort out the finer details and laws needed to maintain the peace.

  It seems simple and innocent enough, but common knowledge does not include the part about Khadija. Grim hoarded that little tidbit of information. Khadija was the skeleton in his closet. Her will was the only thing keeping the boundaries in place, and as long as only he knew about her, he didn’t have to worry about anyone else swooping in and taking over.

  He had her create Limbo City in the center of Eternity, and then he had her create a secret pocket realm for herself. After that, he established himself as the unofficial king of Eternity. He launched Reapers Inc. and formed a monopoly on the soul harvesting business by convincing the council to allow him to create the race of reapers. As the president of the Afterlife Council, he secured an indefinite term by forfeiting his voting privileges. Although, I’m really not sure how he’s managed to keep them from questioning his ability to maintain the territory boundaries. It seems generally accepted that that power is something he wields personally. I’d probably still assume that myself, if I didn’t know any better.

  I just so happen to be the one and only reaper who has actually met Khadija, because it’s her fault that I’m so damn special. Being the actual force behind Eternity’s peace and maintenance, Khadija was the one responsible for creating the new reapers Grim required to further expand Reapers Inc. The problem was, even the soul of an original believer does not possess boundless power. After more than thirteen centuries, Khadija was losing her edge. An unauthorized island materialized out in the Sea of Eternity where Seth, a crusty old Egyptian god determined to take over Eternity, gathered rebel forces, mostly from the Abrahamic hell regions and Duat, the dwindling Egyptian underworld.

  Khadija had been urging Grim, several centuries prior to this incident, to find another soul to replace her. He ignored her requests. That’s where I come in. In 1709, Khadija was busy baking up a new batch of reapers, the eighth generation, when she had the brilliant idea to make an extra special reaper fully equipped with Grim’s ability to see the potency of a soul. That’s right. Me.

  Grim hadn’t harvested a soul in nearly a thousand years. He spent most of his time carefully manipulating the council so that he could still reign supreme, even without a vote. Not that he would have gone out looking for a replacement even if he wasn’t an invalid in the field. His absence would have been noticed by all the wrong people. The risk of exposing his secret was too great, so he ignored Khadija’s pleas.

  When she could take it no longer, she revealed her own little secret to Gr
im. He didn’t have much of a choice at that point. He could either send me out to find a replacement, or wait and watch Eternity cave in on itself.

  So I got promoted. I’d spent the first three hundred years of my existence harvesting low-risk souls, and then suddenly, I was entrusted to harvest the highest of high-risk. No pressure, right? And to top it off, Grim tried to pull off the whole gig without explaining the truth of the matter to me, but Khadija eventually requested a meeting. After the death of Coreen Bendura, the captain of the specialty team I was assigned to, I was ready for an explanation. Things haven’t been the same since.

  So began the search for a replacement soul. Horus, the Egyptian deity on the council, had worked out a deal with Grim allowing for the harvest of souls with past lives of Egyptian Royalty, as long as Horus was permitted to take the rejected soul candidates back to Duat. Duat so rarely saw new souls anymore, now that their territory was a sliver of what is once was.

  I eventually found Winston, or the child king formerly known as Tutankhamun, to take Khadija’s place. King Tut wasn’t an official original believer. He only restored the old Egyptian faith after Akenhaten tried to destroy it, so his power on the throne was already dwindling.

  It was just as well. Horus was not thrilled with the outcome. Tut was one of his favored descendants. Using his supreme powers of deduction, he came to the conclusion that I was special. Then he threatened to out me to the council if I didn’t help him find another replacement soul.

  The peace treaty specifically states that no new deities are to be created. I’m not technically a deity. At least, it’s really difficult to perceive myself as one. I don’t even really consider Grim a deity, but by all rights, I suppose he is. I was made outside of the restrictions set in the treaty either way, and that would mean a very definite and prudent execution. Some of the council members would even be disappointed about it, but that wouldn’t stop them from doing what they were required to do by law.