by Liz Schulte
“So I am told,” he said with an enigmatic expression that looked both amused and annoyed. He turned to Olivia and stared at her too long. His face softened, obviously pleased with what he saw. “We meet at last.” The corners of his mouth lifted in an attempt at a smile, revealing crooked teeth.
Olivia looked back at him with clear eyes. “I’ve seen you before.”
He frowned. “Regrettable circumstances.”
“Can you help her?” Holden asked, fire erupting in his eyes.
“This has nothing to do with you.” Death didn’t spare him a glance. Olivia was obviously the one he wanted to see.
“Like hell it doesn’t.” Holden kicked the leg of Death’s chair.
He turned slowly toward Holden and stared into his soul. To his credit, Holden didn’t flinch, though his jaw tightened and his eyes narrowed. “You are insignificant to my plans.” His tongue touched the corner of his mouth. “And if you are able to protect her, why is she here now, in this condition no less?” He nodded when Holden didn’t reply. “I will take it from here. You may go.”
There wasn’t a threat Holden could make that would matter to Death. There wasn’t a promise he could keep or a deal he could strike, and he knew it. It was written all over his face. Death couldn’t be stopped or fought. When the Angel of Death sat down at our table, whatever the game was, he called checkmate.
Death pivoted back to Olivia, knowing he had won but without a trace of gloating. “I could have saved you so much pain.” He caught a piece of her hair between his thumb and his forefinger and gently smoothed it over her shoulder. “Had you come to me sooner…”
Olivia was quiet.
“I think we should probably speak alone.” He flourished a hand toward the door.
Her eye ticked, but other than that small tell, she remained motionless. “I’m not going anywhere,” I said. It wasn’t just Holden’s eyes flaming now. The blaze traveled down his arms. Olivia had been right. I wasn’t here to stand between her and Death. I was here to stand between Death and Holden.
“Olivia?” Her name curved off Death’s tongue and seemed to blossom in the air. “I will speak only to you. They do not have a say in what is to come. It is between the two of us alone.”
She blinked a few times. “I understand.” Her voice cracked, but a thin smile stretched her face. “I’ll be fine.”
Holden didn’t budge.
“You wanted me to do this,” she said quietly.
His lip curled and she gave me a pleading look. “You can’t win. Either I go with him or we leave and this option disappears.”
It was a mistake, a huge mistake, but her spirit was weaker now than it had been at the warehouse. “Is this our only chance?” I asked.
She nodded. I stood up and kicked Holden in the shin hard enough to get his attention.
His glare redirected to me. “Kick me again and lose the foot.”
“Come on, Chuckles. You’re the third wheel on your girlfriend’s date with death.” When he still didn’t move, I tried a new tactic. “Look at her. Can you stand to watch her fade away like this? I can’t.”
He stood up. “I’ll be right on the other side of that door.”
Death gave him a patronizing look and put a hand on Olivia’s shoulder. “If that gives you peace.” A second later Olivia, Death, and the fedora were gone, without even a flash of light. Just gone.
If this was what the deep end looked like, we were going to drown.
I was nowhere, yet everywhere. Everything was bright and white. It was familiar yet entirely new. Death stood in front of me watching everything I did. His presence was comforting, but fear continued to pound through me. His face was soft and his eyes filled with sympathy, yet there was unyielding iron at their core. No matter how empathetic to my plight he might be, his decisions would be final. He always won in the end and he had the confidence of someone who knew that. His head bobbed up and down and he squinted as he watched me.
The bright white nothingness surrounding us was neither hot nor cold. Every problem I had was just out of reach of my thoughts. I knew I was here for a reason, but couldn’t exactly remember what it was. When had I been here? It was on the edge of my thoughts.
When I died.
The memory flashed in my mind, the pain dull as an old wound.
“Yes!” Death’s arms stretched up and he smiled, squinting even further. His smile was as arresting as it was shocking. It exploded onto his face and was gone the next second as if it had all been imagined.
My own lips edged upward, but I couldn’t say why, other than his smile startled it out of me. Tranquility spread through me like a cool touch on a hot day. I took a step forward. My legs didn’t wobble. In fact, I felt better—no scratch that, I felt great. I took several more steps, and relief and happiness lifted my heart. I was going to be okay.
“How?” I asked. “Am I healed?” I could have kissed him.
He opened his mouth then closed it again. “I once knew a man who was shot in the chest. He held on to his life for hours past his time. I sat with him until he finally let go. Everyone believes they die alone, but they don’t. I am there. I am always there. Granted you took me by surprise when you died last time, but I was still there in the very moment you needed me most.”
I swallowed hard. “Am I dying?”
“That’s not the right question. You already know the answer to that.”
I licked my lips. More memories came back to me. He was right. I came to this meeting knowing that my time was rapidly approaching yet again.
“Can you stop it?”
“Ah.” He tilted his head back. Again with the sympathy. “Once you are on my list, reversal is nearly impossible.”
I closed my eyes and let out a slow breath.
“Would dying really be that bad?” His chin tilted up and his eyes pinned me.
I shook my head. It was the truth, but my heart refused to let go. “I can’t leave. You said you could help. How do I survive?”
He looked deep inside of me. “I knew you were special from the start, not the angel half of you, but this half. The part that never gives up.” He nodded. “Your survival does not have an easy answer. You and the angel were halves of the same whole.”
I nodded. “But we didn’t blend.”
“You blended more than you might believe. Personality-wise, perhaps not, but you freely used her powers. You still are.” He pressed his hand over the wound on my chest. “While the knife’s poison draws out any last trace of the angel inside of you, it is taking you as well. It cannot be separated.”
“You said you could help.” Desperation clawed its way back inside of me, disrupting the calm of the room.
“I can.” He searched my face like he could see straight into my heart. “But you won’t like the solution.”
“What is it?”
“From the beginning of time, I have been alone. This is my sole purpose for being. I will never know my heavenly brethren or the fallen below. This world is my domain and all those who step foot in it leave by my hand. Can you fathom that sort of power?”
I shook my head.
“Good.” He nodded. “Too many would seek to abuse it. For every beginning, there must be an end. I am that end. Good, evil, right, wrong, none of it matters. Every creature great and small, no matter what deals they have made or how they might try to escape me, always meets an end.”
“And that is you.”
He nodded.
“So you could kill Mammon?”
He smiled a little. “Yes, but I am neutral. I do not influence events. I merely deliver souls as they are needed. Breaking that would have terrible irreversible consequences.”
I nodded. “So how do I defeat him?”
“You cannot.” He blinked, breaking his intense stare for just a moment. “You have shown incredible resilience to both sides seeking to impart their agendas on you.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t understand.”
“You
could join me. You are an angel or at least you could be again. Once you come to me, you will be untouchable by either side. I will restore your strength and you will help me collect souls. It will save you and eliminate any threat to you.”
My mouth went dry. The image of my mother crumbling to the ground, no preamble, no fight, just gone, filled my head. I helped people. I didn’t kill them. “You took my mother,” I whispered.
He breathed in deep. “I take everyone.” He held my gaze then nodded slowly. “I took your father. I took grandparents. Your great grandparents. . You aren’t thinking about this in the correct terms. The life would end regardless of you being there. You make the passing easier and lead them to a new life. A second, third, fourth, one-hundredth chance.” He took my hand. “Don’t you see? You will still be helping.”
He was so calm, so soothing, so devastatingly reasonable.
I shook my head. I couldn’t see that. I didn’t want to. “How do you know?”
“I have faith.”
This was impossible. How was I supposed to choose? On one hand every decision I made led to worse consequences that I had to bear. On the other hand was death and giving up everyone I knew and loved.
“If I say no, how long do I have?”
Disappointment was clear, but he nodded. “If that is what you want. Hours, days, there is no way to tell. Your date has not been set.” His mouth settled in a firm line. “Are you sure of this decision?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know.”
He placed a solid hand on my shoulder. “I will give you one week to settle your affairs and decide if you would like to continue here with me. In seven days time, all of this will end one way or another.”
Energy rushed through me, making my stomach jump then crash back down. I blinked and was back at the warehouse, dizzy but still very much alive. Rain pelted my skin and I had never felt anything so invigorating.
Holden opened the door almost immediately. His face was hard, but an instant later I was in his arms. I couldn’t say if I went to him or if he pulled me to him. Either way, we collided and it was exactly where I wanted to be—and exactly where I shouldn’t be if this was going to end.
He squeezed me tight and I melted into him—then gathered my strength and stepped away. A shadow of grief crossed his face, but a moment later was gone.
He faltered for a moment, then spoke haltingly. “Are you better? You look better. What did he want?”
“I am stronger, but I don’t know if it will last for very long.”
“So he didn’t…”
Kill me? Obviously not. I shook my head. “He offered me a deal. I told him I needed time to think about it.”
He nodded. “What were his terms?”
“Me. He wants me to be a reaper. He will restore me to angel status, minus the other personality, and I would become untouchable by either side.”
Holden’s hands fell to his sides. “And you’ll live.”
I frowned. “I’ll have to kill people—countless people, every single day, for the rest of eternity.”
Holden didn’t look sympathetic.
“I have one week to decide.”
“There’s no decision. It’s this or dying. You have to do it.”
I crossed my arms. “Of course, there’s a decision—and I will make it, not you. I’m the one who will have to live with it. So far every change I’ve gone through has made my life worse. I was happy. I had a good life, a job I loved, a family, and friends, and then I died. I was a terrible guardian and an even worse angel. I won’t fool myself into thinking I’ll make a good reaper. Maybe the only thing I’m good at being is human.”
One side of his mouth curled up. “When you’re done feeling sorry for yourself, let me know.” He turned and went back inside leaving me in the rain.
My fist clenched, wanting to punch him in his smug face. I went inside, drenched. Everyone was there: Femi, Quintus, Maggie, Corbin, Phoenix, and the little girl. Femi and Quintus jumped up and came toward me, firing a flurry of questions.
I imagined myself dry, and for the first time in two weeks my power actually worked. Light covered me then faded away and I looked like I always did.
“So you’re better,” Femi said. She pulled me in to a tight hug. “I’m not going to lie, you were starting to worry me. I don’t think I could take losing both you and Baker. We should celebrate.” She tipped her head to the side. “Wanna go kill some demons? Get a little payback?”
I laughed and hugged her back just as tight, emotion tightening my throat.
When Femi let go, Quintus gave me a softer hug. “What would we do without you, firefly?”
Holden caught my eye over Quintus’s shoulder, raised an eyebrow and then glanced around the room. Every person in this room will suffer needlessly if you choose to leave, he said.
Not every one, I replied. Not the vampire, not … I was going to say “not you,” but I was transparent enough. It wasn’t that Holden’s words didn’t resonate with me because they did. But it wasn’t as simple as just becoming a reaper. It never was. There were always catches.
Give him time, Holden thought-spoke, ignoring the second part of my comment, which was just as well. There really was nothing left for him to say.
I fielded Femi and Quintus’s questions with the most vague answers possible. It made sense why Death took me away from Femi and Holden. The thought of disappointing them, any of them, was enough to sway my decision.
Are you going to tell them or should I? Holden’s voice rang through my head again.
This is my decision. Butt out.
Like hell it is. Do you have any idea what they all went through to bring you back? “She isn’t healed,” he said loud enough for everyone to hear.
Femi stopped midsentence, Quintus’s face fell, Maggie accidentally broke the little girl’s doll, and even Corbin looked back at me with interest.
“Is that true?” Maggie asked.
I clenched my jaw and nodded.
“What does that mean?” Quintus asked. “How can you not be healed?”
I rubbed my temple. “I don’t feel like talking about this.”
“Too fucking bad,” Femi said. “Sit your boney ass down and tell us exactly what happened.”
When I didn’t say anything, Holden did. “He offered to renew the angel’s powers to her and save her life.”
Why was he doing this to me?
“Then why aren’t you better?” Femi asked.
Support came from an unlikely corner. “There’s always a catch,” Corbin said. “There’s a catch.”
“What is it?” Quintus asked.
“I have to reap for him.” Everyone went quiet.
“That’s not so bad,” Corbin said. “It would take Mammon out of the fight before it even began.”
Holden had the self-satisfied smirk of someone who obviously felt he won.
“What else?” Quintus asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Will you be able to stay here? With us? How will it change your way of life? Will you get time off? As far as I know the Angel of Death has never done a lot of mingling. He works all the time. So many people die, and someone has to be there… . I don’t actually know how he manages it.”
I closed my eyes. I’d been so appalled by the idea of taking lives, I hadn’t thought to ask those questions. “I didn’t ask,” I said.
Holden wasn’t smiling now.
Femi stalked around the room. “Well, that’s something we need to know. We also need to find other options.”
“I can look in the archives,” Quintus volunteered.
“I’ll talk to the witches,” Femi said, heading for the door with Corbin on her heels.
“Phoenix, find Sybil and bring her here,” Holden said.
Phoenix stood up. When he got to me, he stopped. “For what it’s worth, if anyone was going to take my soul to the underworld, I’d want it to be you.” He smiled a little and left.
Holden
scowled at the door. “Like a moth to a flame,” he muttered to himself.
“Do you want me to go too?” Maggie asked.
I shook my head and sat down next to her and the girl. “Why did you try to become a vampire?” I asked. “I mean, didn’t having to live by feeding off of others bother you?”
She took a deep breath. “I didn’t think about that part. Knowing this whole other world existed, and I was defenseless against it, scared me. This was the only thing I could find that offered me a chance to control my life again. As a vampire I could take care of myself and—” She shrugged.
The little girl, bored with us, went to Holden and tugged on the bottom of his shirt until he picked her up.
“Be a part of Baker’s life,” I supplied. It wasn’t a stretch. It was the exact same reason I’d been willing to become a jinni. “I’m sorry for your loss,” I said.
She pressed her lips together, her red eyes filling with tears. “I think Baker would understand if you didn’t want to be a reaper,” she said. “He would want you to be happy. He was kind of great like that.”
Tears prickled in my eyes, too. “He really was.”
The door slammed and Holden was gone. The child dropped her beaten-up doll, lip quivering.
You want a fight? Here I am,” I shouted into the wind and the rain, standing in front of a boarded up, former synagogue Hell was using as a base. “You fucking cowards.”
They always went after the weak, the ones who couldn’t defend themselves. Marge, Maggie, Baker, and now Olivia. They chipped away at you and set you on edge until bad decisions were the only ones you had left. I was done playing their game. If Olivia wasn’t surviving this then who the fuck cared if I did. She didn’t have any business being a reaper any more than I had being an angel.
No one came out, so I went for the door. “So you want to die, just when you’re getting interesting?” a woman’s voice said behind me.
I turned, expecting to find a demon. Instead two women stood leaned against a car parked on the street. One had long coal black hair and wore sunglasses, though it was overcast and storming. The other had long white-blond hair that fell in cascading waves. They definitely were magical, but I couldn’t place what they were. I turned back toward the building, taking a few more steps.