Chapter 16
I perched on the light pole above a busy street corner. I could have stood on the ground, but watching people pass through you could get unnerving when there were so many. Especially since I was at the utmost edge of the veil, where I would be able to feel them passing through me. Ruffling the inky black feathers of my wings I settled in to wait above them.
Cocking my head, I looked down the street with one beady green eye. The world looked different when I was in my raven form, but it was better than standing in the crowd that flowed down the sidewalks.
Though I was in the veil, I could also become a raven in the mortal world. The people hurrying by on the street had no idea that a lot of the birds in their skies were residents of Midtween. I wasn’t sure who was who, that was kept confidential; though I was pretty sure guardians like my sister were probably doves. All peace and love and whatever.
As I waited for the last person on my list, my mind wandered to Caius and the rest of the day I would have to spend in his company. To say I wasn’t looking forward to it was an understatement. Spending time with an arrogant, temperamental, irritating demonborn was not at the top of my fun list.
If I was lucky it wouldn’t take us long to figure out what, or who, was causing the Lost and I could be done with Caius and this stupid partial bond crap. I wondered what bird form demonborn took when they shifted. Probably something annoying.
A car skidded around the corner at the end of the block, its tires squealing across the pavement. The engine roared as it sped toward the intersection I kept watch over. Almost time.
The car dashed across the lanes as two police cars, their sirens wailing, careened around the corner in pursuit. Below me, the car flew into the intersection without even pausing for the red light. The driver of a semi-truck coming from the other direction didn’t have a chance to react before his rig plowed into the driver’s side of the car.
Glass shattered, metal crumpled, and a split second later, the smashed car crashed into the light pole. I took off with a squawk, losing a few feathers as the pole fell violently from beneath me, reflecting the mortal world this close to the edge of the veil. People were crazy, that’s all there was to it.
I dove for the ground changing into my human form as I landed and stepped onto the sidewalk as the last of my feathers became my reaper cloak.
After settling my cloak that was almost as messed up as my feathers had been from my forceful departure from the pole, I turned to the wrecked car. Confusion filled me. Where was the soul? I pulled the list from the inside pocket of my cloak and looked at it another time to be sure. Yep, there should definitely be one Michael Miller standing beside that car. It happened so fast there would be no guardian here to try and save his life. That ended the minute the truck hit him. So where was he?
I circled the wreck several times, so distracted by the missing soul I didn’t even notice people passing through me on the other side of the veil. Miller’s body hung partway out of the door on the passenger side. The driver’s side, where he’d been before the wreck, was smashed so bad it wasn’t recognizable as a car. Glancing again at Miller’s body, I realized all of him wasn’t even on the passenger side. Some of him was mixed up in the twisted metal. He was definitely broken beyond repair.
A cold feeling settled in my gut and I searched the wreck site once more even as my stomach rolled at the site of the carnage, something I still hadn’t gotten used to seeing. Not again. Already nine of the souls on my list were Lost and three had been taken by soul eaters who ganged up on me. With their food supply in danger, the eaters were desperate. Miller was nowhere.
I looked at my list. His name was still there, but faded now. What in the nine hells? I turned and ran to the nearest shop. Without the soul, the elevator wouldn’t be available. Opening the door, I stood impatiently on the threshold while I waited for everything to shift. After a bit, the world around me began to shimmer like I saw it through heat waves.
Finally, everything disappeared altogether and the river bank began to materialize. By the time it was clear enough for me to step onto the sand, Michael Miller was already in the water. The river boiled as the screams of the Lost filled the air. I caught one glimpse of his face before he disappeared beneath the surface for all time.
Clenching my jaw, I spun back to the doorway. After several long seconds, I appeared in one of the freestanding doorways in the huge room that was the Incoming Office. I marched past the drop-offs for my stuff and stormed into Alaric’s office. “What in the hells just happened out there?”
Alaric blinked up at me. I wasn’t sure if he was surprised to see me or surprised by the fact I’d barged into his office yelling. He set down the papers he was going over and gave me an aggrieved look. “More Lost?”
“Right from under my nose no less!” I paced the width of his office. “Not only did nine others on my list became Lost, somehow, in the split second it took me to shift, someone stole a soul from me. How is that possible, Alaric? It’s bad enough that whoever it is has been able to hide deaths from us, or whatever they’re doing; now they can steal them even when a reaper is right there? The human race will be extinct inside the next hundred years at this rate.”
“Alaric?”
I turned to see Ryan standing at the doorway to the office. Alaric sighed and motioned him in. Probably hoping another person there would keep my outburst down to a dull roar. Ryan came into the office, a grim look on his face. “Though I hate to be the bearer of bad news, eleven of the souls on my list became Lost today. Two just disappeared. One moment they were breathing their last and the next, nowhere to be found.”
I threw my hands in the air. “See?”
Ryan glanced at me before turning his attention back on Alaric. “There’ve been numerous reapers reporting the same thing since shift end. Nearly seventeen thousand souls total became Lost this shift. A few reapers lost their entire list.”
I blanched. That was nearly a third of the shift’s total souls, give or take a few thousand, on any given day. Almost a sixth of the souls in a twenty-four hour period. The numbers were staggering.
A sick feeling turned my stomach. There was no getting out of finding who was behind this. And even if there was, I knew I would never take it. A lot of innocent souls would never return. It wasn’t fair to let it happen to more, not if I could stop it somehow.
Alaric sighed and rubbed his eyes, the strain the news caused clear on his face. “The numbers have continued to climb with every shift. Yesterday there only a few hundred.”
Ryan glanced at me one last time before leaving as if curious about what I was doing in Alaric’s office.
I shifted uncomfortably as Alaric’s gaze settled on me. After a long moment of silence, he said, “You see how important your task is?”
When I nodded, he continued, “Most of the Lost never even showed up on the Death Rolls. They were not slated to die. Someone is ending their lives prematurely. How they are stealing them from reapers at the time of death, I have no idea. Between the two issues, I fear your prediction will come true.”
“I don’t even know where to begin,” I said, flopping down in the chair across from his desk. “Unless Caius has some mystic knowledge I don’t, we’re just going to be fumbling in the dark.”
“This is why I wanted to speak with you today.” Alaric leaned forward and rested his arms on the desk’s surface, his expression grave. “There is a dagger that will set this right. It will lead you to the culprit.”
“A dagger?”
“Forged by the combined powers of the Heavens and the Hells, it is a powerful tool. You must find it.”
“And how am I supposed to do that?”
“The dagger is sealed in a box with two locks. You will have to retrieve the keys first.” Alaric lifted an old piece of parchment. “I can tell you how to find the first key. The location of the second will be revealed where you find the first.”
It sounded like this was going to take longer tha
n I hoped. “I don’t suppose it’s hanging on a convenient key ring, or hidden under a fake rock somewhere?”
“No. And I cannot even tell you the exact location of it. That knowledge lies with the key’s Watcher. One determined by the Heavens as a guardian. Only she knows the location of the first key.”
“I guess this means there’s a Watcher for the second key as well?”
Alaric nodded. “As far as I know, the Watcher for the second key was chosen by the Hells.”
Oh, this just got better and better. What a complicated mess. “Tell me how to find the first Watcher then,” I said with a sigh.
“The first is in the mortal world, though she is not entirely mortal. I’ve been able to sort out that she is in what is called the Yukon.”
“That may narrow it down some, but the last I checked the Yukon was still a big place. What am I supposed to do, get a team of sled dogs and run all over the place asking everyone if they’re the Watcher?”
I had a sudden vision of myself as Sigourney Weaver asking everyone if they were the gatekeeper. A Sigourney dressed in a heavy cloak instead of a filmy dress though because it would be cold in the Yukon this time of year.
Alaric sighed and rubbed his temples. I couldn’t tell if it was because of the situation or if I was annoying him. “The rest reads like a riddle. It says, ‘She dwells next to a jewel in the church of a natural cemetery.’ I have not been able to decipher it.”
“Well, that just pinpoints it. Were the writers of whatever document you have there unable to just say it plainly?”
“It is all I have to give you.” Alaric shrugged. “You and Caius are both intelligent. I have every faith you will figure it out.”
Unwilling to debate Caius’s intelligence, I stood. “Why can’t you get this dagger?”
“The keys can only be turned by full hybrids. One of the Heavens, one from the Hells.”
There it was again, my angel half causing problems for me. “No point in hanging around then. I guess I’m off to find a lady who is a little too attached to cemeteries.”
Without waiting for Alaric to say anything else, I stalked out of his office. Because Elijah couldn’t keep it in his pants I was about to go on a ridiculous journey with a stupid demonborn.
***
“I’m not looking forward to the time spent with her. It would be better for us both if there was another way.” ~Caius
Chapter 17
I slammed the door to my apartment when I returned home, making Bethany jump and nearly drop the plate of food in her hands.
“What’s with you?”
“Nothing.” I shrugged then told the kitchen what I wanted to eat.
“Well, something’s wrong.” Bethany frowned. “You aren’t usually this grumpy, even after a bad shift.”
“Yeah well, I’ve never had a soul stolen right out from under me either. A soul which became a Lost, by the way,” I said as I snatched my food off the counter and walked over to the couch. It was only a partial truth, but it wasn’t like I could tell her everything that was going on.
“You too, huh?” Bethany said as she sat next to me. “I couldn’t believe it. One minute she was dying and the next, just gone.”
I nodded and mumbled something that sounded like agreement as I bit into my giant cheeseburger, my annoyance with losing my last soul rising to the surface. Chewing hastily, I swallowed the bite. “I don’t even understand how it’s possible.”
“No one does. It’s never happened before. I mean, there has always been the occasional missed death, but souls have never been Lost from an attended death.” Bethany eyed me as I took another huge bite of food. “Geez, Jo. Hungry much?”
“I’m just trying to hurry up and stuff my face before I go.”
“Go where?” She took a far more dainty bite of her own food.
Uh…my mind scrambled to come up with a plausible place for me to go where she wouldn’t want to come too. “I promised to meet up with Victoria and spend some time with her.”
“Oh.” Bethany grimaced. “You’re on your own then. I’m not much for the holier-than-thou attitude that seems to run so strongly in the guardians. Like they’re somehow so much better than us because they have the power to save a life. Most of them would probably pass out cold if they had to see a soul become Lost, or watch one get dragged away by the collectors.”
“Or battle an eater,” I said before shoving the last of the cheeseburger in my mouth in a most unladylike manner. It really wasn’t going to be enough, despite the size of it. With the amount of energy I’d already expended, I could really have used at least one more cheeseburger and maybe a couple of vials of replenisher. It would have to be enough for now. I didn’t have any replenisher and no time to eat more.
Bethany studied me. “You seem awful eager to put up with it tonight, though.”
I shrugged. “She’s my sister and it’s been awhile since we’ve spent any time together.”
She pursed her lips like she wasn’t sure she believed me. Finished with my food, I went to change out of the clothes I’d worn all day. I was going to the mortal world, so I should probably wear proper clothes for it, but I couldn’t leave here dressed like that or Bethany would know something was definitely up. After our last experience othersiding, she wouldn’t believe me if I told her I planned to go with Victoria. Rowen had made it clear no one was doing that anytime soon.
After a bit of thought, I put on a pair of blue jeans, a cami, a t-shirt over that, and a long-sleeved shirt over that. Then I pulled a clean Reaper cloak over it all. I glanced in the mirror. Yep, that would work. I didn’t even look any bulkier. The long- sleeved shirt wasn’t exactly heavy, but I didn’t have any that were. I didn’t have to worry about the cold while inside the veil and we didn’t otherside in northern cities during the winter.
I ran a brush through my hair then glanced around my room one more time. From the rumpled covers on my bed to the book collection I’d rebuilt since coming here, this place was home. I’d grown attached to my room and the apartment I shared with my friend. Not knowing when I would be back made me hesitant to leave in the first place. Sighing, I forced myself to walk away.
“Have fun,” Bethany said in a tone that said she didn’t believe it was possible to have fun in the Guardian section of the city.
I gave her a halfhearted wave on my way out the door. What I really wanted to do was give her a huge hug and tell her I was going to miss her since I didn’t know how long it would take, how long I would be gone. But I couldn’t and didn’t.
Just like I didn’t stop to see my sister, though I wanted to. Victoria and I had our differences, but she was still my big sister. As I faced a journey into gods knew what, I wanted her. And I wanted my mom. I wanted to tell her all of it and listen to her as she told me everything was going to be okay. Unfortunately, none of it was possible. So I pulled my big girl panties up, stepped into the elevator and told it to take me to the ground floor.
I headed for the front of the building as soon as the doors opened, keeping my eyes forward hoping nobody stopped to talk to me.
“Jo,” Rowen called from the doorway of his office. “Come in here a minute.”
So much for hoping. I turned and trudged into his office. I couldn’t very well ignore my guide.
“I wanted to talk with you yesterday. Unfortunately, you left for shift early and made yourself scarce afterward.” Rowen settled behind his desk, motioning toward the chair in front of it. Reluctantly, I sat down as Rowen eyed me across his desk. “I know you aren’t big on sharing, but I wanted to make sure you are okay. I know the rumors of war are hard on you. Add almost being killed a couple of days ago on top of that and it would shake most people up.”
“I’m fine. I guess it’s good I’m not most people.” What was I supposed to say? That the thought of othersiding anytime soon scared the crap out of me? It did. I wasn’t going to admit that any more than I was going to tell him I was getting ready to go to the other side wi
th a demonborn. Not just any demonborn either. I was going with Caius.
“You don’t have to be brave with me, Jo. All of us older reapers have been there at one time or another. Possibly not with the rumors of war, but we’ve all had our near brushes with demonborn.” Rowen’s critical gaze studied my face as if searching for a crack in my façade.
He wouldn’t find it. I’d worn a façade all of my life, not being normal quickly teaches a person to hide it. And during my mother’s illness, I had perfected it. “I’m good.”
“Where are you off to then?”
Bad enough I lied to Bethany, now I had to lie to my guide too. Hopefully, it was as good as my front because Rowen wouldn’t be easily fooled. “I promised Victoria I would visit her today.”
He remained silent for so long I thought for sure he’d seen through it. Apparently, I did better than I thought because he finally said, “Good. Some time spent with your sister will probably help you.”
I nodded, unsure of how time spent with Victoria would help even if I wasn’t sneaking away. I hadn’t seen her since that day in the hospital. Victoria might seem cool and detached, but I knew her well enough to know she was going to freak out over the othersiding incident. “Can I go now?”
“Certainly. Stop by before you go on shift tomorrow.” Rowen waved me away.
“Sure thing.” I left the office as quick as I could without looking suspicious.
Great, just great. Not only was Bethany going to be wondering where I was in the morning, now Rowen was going to be expecting me as well. It wasn’t going to take them long to realize I hadn’t left for shift early.
In moments I was walking the sandy path to the Demonborn Bridge. I didn’t have a way of contacting Caius, so I hoped he would assume that was our meeting place as well. If he wasn’t there, I could always stand in the middle of it and shout toward the other side. I wasn’t sure how he would feel about me yelling into his section of the city that he better get his “well-controlled” butt to the bridge, but I didn’t care.
Unveiled (Raven Daughter Book 1) Page 11