by Liz Schulte
Charlie tightened her grip around my waist, burying her face into my hip. Quintus came running from the back.
“There’s no way out,” he said. I could practically see the thoughts swirling through his mind, as the steel walls continued to shake. He could save the two of us, but Charlie and Corbin would be on their own—an option I would never accept.
“Holden’s coming,” I said.
The news didn’t put Quintus at ease. “There are a lot of them, Olivia.”
Corbin’s head lulled back. “That’s the spirit. Give up before we even start.”
“No one is giving up—” I said.
He bolted to his feet as a man I had never seen before walked into the room from the back hallway that led to only more rooms.
I moved Charlie behind me. Corbin moved so fast toward the man that he blurred, but the next instant everything slowed. The banging from the outside was low and slow, Corbin barely moved mid charge, and Holden’s mist that had just begun to form moved in slow motion.
The man looked directly at me and smiled in a small intimate way. His crinkling green eyes reminded me very much of Holden.
“Sorry for the intrusion,” he said.
I blinked several times. “Are they…”
“I’ve been waiting a long time to meet you.“ He beckoned me.
My legs moved forward without my consent and Charlie came with me, also not paused like the rest of them. The man either didn’t see her or chose to ignore her as I approached. His shark-like stare took in every line, every dent, and every imperfection on me.
His chin angled down. “So you’re the one.”
“I don’t think I am.” I said. “Who are you?”
“Why we’re practically family.”
I forced myself to step backwards, and took Charlie by the arm. As soon as I touched her, the pressure against my legs eased and whatever control the man had over me faded. “Who are you?” I repeated again with more authority, mimicking one of Holden’s annoyed looks.
His stare finally left my face and drifted to Charlie. “Interesting,” he said under his breath, then stepped to the left and waved his hand. The room exploded into a motion. Corbin missed his target, Holden appeared, Quintus came to my side, and the walls resumed shuddering and shaking.
“Who’s that?” Quintus asked.
“For fuck’s sake,” Holden said at the same time, glaring at the man.
He glanced over at him. “I’m just protecting my interests and meeting Olivia.”
“I don’t know what this is,” Corbin said, stepping up. “But we seem to have bigger problems.” He gestured to the door. “Perhaps you could do something about that first.”
The man stepped back, folding his arms behind his back. “I’ll wait.”
“No one invited you here,” Holden snarled as he stomped toward the door then vanished in a puff of steam and smoke.
There was no way I was letting him go out there alone. I ran toward the door, brushing off Quintus’s hand as he tried to stop me. I wrenched the door open and all the banging stopped. Heavy unnatural silence pressed down on me as I walked into the pouring rain, Quintus close behind. I didn’t see Holden or anything. Everything seemed, dare I say, normal.
I held a hand up to Quintus, motioning for him to stay where he was. I’d glanced back for only a second when something leaped at me from above and crashed down on me. My knees buckled under the weight, though I managed to keep my arm between us as it gnashed its bloody, pointed teeth. Raw meat where its lips should have been hung in rotting tethers over my face. I focused my strength and energy into my hands and jammed both of them into its chest. I still couldn’t tell if the beast was evil or not, but it disintegrated all the same from my touch. I scrambled to my feet, a bit woozy.
“On your right,” Femi yelled.
I spun, not pausing to question when she’d arrived, and caught a new attacker mid-charge. This one didn’t turn to ash as fast as the other one had—and while it struggled, three more beasts had time to spot me. They were everywhere.
Femi kicked one solidly in the chest and charged toward me, but another creature got a hold of her shoulder, tearing her skin and sending blood spraying across the ground. She whirled around and dug her claws into its shoulder. “Hurts, doesn’t it.”
Three more surrounded her as Quintus struggled with his own monsters, and Holden was still nowhere in sight. Maggie appeared from around the corner of the building and pressed her back to mine as the creatures surrounded us.
“What are they?” she asked.
“I have no idea.”
They charged us, using no weapons other than their claw-like fingers and spikey teeth. I grabbed two, only because I had to, and poured as much energy into them as I could, shaking from the effort. Slowly they stiffened and began to flake away. My legs gave out and blackness crept in along my vision. I gasped for air. The monsters trampled over me toward Maggie as she fought in a frenzied attack. More advanced on me, but someone stepped in front of me and moved in a blur of motion. I concentrated on breathing and glanced back at Maggie, who was bloody and had taken to grabbing them and throwing them away from us. Her too bright aura still surrounded her, not diminished a bit by her effort. The creatures were surrounded by darkness.
“Feed on them,” I wheezed.
“What?” she asked, hurling the next one toward the dumpster.
“Pull their energy into you.”
Maggie caught the next one and wrapped her steel-like grip around it. “Now what?”
The creature thrashed in her arms, tearing at the skin on her forearm, but she didn’t budge. I had no idea how to explain. It wasn’t how I fed, but I could see what she needed. She needed to balance the growing light in her with darkness before it consumed her. I pushed myself up to my knees. “Don’t think about it. Just focus on the hunger. Your body will know what to do.”
She closed her eyes, and her lips pulled back and her head lulled toward the sky. The creature in her hands squealed and screeched until its lifeless corpse fell to the ground. She opened her eyes, which were completely black now, and went to the next and the next, consuming them faster each time.
“Now that you found her a food source, which one of us is going to stop her?” Corbin said, offering me a hand up.
I took it, letting him pull me up. “Why would we stop her?”
“New vampires.” He shrugged. “The hunger can be devastating.”
I looked at the pile of broken bodies. “I thought this wasn’t your problem.”
“You’re welcome.”
“What are they?”
“Wendigos,” Quintus said, standing on the other side of me.
The rain had prevented day from actually seeming much like day recently. The endless stream of clouds had given the city the impression of being forever in darkness. “Are they demons?”
“They’re souls who couldn’t make it through purgatory. You don’t see them above ground very often,” Corbin said. “Certainly not in these kind of numbers.”
The piles of bodies gave me a bad feeling. We were missing something. “Femi, where’s Holden?” I called out.
She too watched Maggie devour the remaining wendigos, while clutching her injured arm to her chest. “Haven’t seen him,” she said.
Corbin pointed to the roof then went back to watching Maggie, a strange sort of fascination lingering on his face.
I couldn’t see Holden, but corpses continued to fall from the roof’s edge. “Should someone help him?”
“It might be more dangerous to try to help him than to leave him alone,” Femi said.
I nodded and watched the pile grow taller. Why send something we could defeat? Why sacrifice all these people?
“Pawns,” I suddenly whispered, getting it. If we were all out here, who was inside with Charlie? My legs felt like they were made of lead as I tried to run back to the building, but could barely walk.
“What’s wrong,” Quintus asked.
> “Charlie,” I said. “Who’s watching the little girl?” I forced one foot in front of the other.
Femi streaked past us, blood streaming down her arm, and in to the building. I struggled to take another step. “Go help her,” I told Quintus.
“She’ll be okay,” he said calmly.
I let my eyes fill with tears and looked up at him. “Please.” Manipulative, but effective.
He frowned, never able to deal with a woman crying. “Fine.” He went inside and I stopped trying to move at all.
I took a deep breath and reached out to Death. I’m ready. I couldn’t exist as I was. It put everyone else in danger. Femi was hurt, Maggie could have been, and who knew what happened to the little girl. This had to end.
The rain stopped as if someone hit pause. My finger touched one of the frozen drops and came back wet. Footsteps slowly approached. The echo of their finality and the sheer force of the walker’s intent hit me like a wall. This wasn’t like the other times I met with Death. This was real, inescapable.
“This is sooner than I expected, Olivia.” The gentle rasp of his voice grated down my spine. He gave me a tight-lipped smile as I turned to him. “Shall we?” He held out a hand.
I shook my head, hands clenched behind my back. “I’ll join you, but I still want to be me. Also, I want to be assured that Holden and I can still be together and that I won’t change. He also needs to be free from Hell once and for all.”
“Those were not the terms of our arrangement.” He looked around, eyes narrowing on the building. “The traveler is inside.”
I wouldn’t be distracted. This was the only agreement I could make. If I was going to give up everything else and shepherd the dead, then I needed the rest of it. “It’s this or I find another way.”
He laughed, the only noise in a perfectly silent world—a truly chilling sound. “There is no other way. No matter what he told you.”
“I can always let myself die. I’m not afraid.”
“You are aware that what you are living now is your afterlife?” He raised his eyebrows. “If you choose to die, you will cease to exist. That is how it works.”
I gritted my teeth and nodded. “It’s another option. And if it’s between that or me turning into something I can’t recognize as myself, then I’m not afraid to let go.”
The silence roared between us. He gave a single nod. “I believe you mean that.”
My hands clenched tighter. “I do. I don’t want the angel back.”
“I couldn’t give her back to you if I wanted to. You will be given the ability to act in my stead.”
“And I won’t change?”
“Change,” he said. “That is what the world does. It is constantly changing. No matter if you win or lose, you will always be different than when you started. You yourself have been a catalyst for change on more than one occasion. I cannot promise you will remain static. No one can. Power, or lack of it, affects conscious beings in unpredictable ways.”
That made sense, but wasn’t exactly comforting. Too open to interpretation. “What about Holden? Can I still be with him? Will he be safe from Hell?”
Death did his far off stare thing again, shaking his head slightly. “It is unclear,” he muttered to himself.
My nerves screamed and I struggled to maintain composure. Getting Death to agree to anything was about as easy as talking the sun out of setting. “What’s unclear?”
His head jerked back to attention. “I cannot offer those assurances.”
I shook my head. “No deal.” My voice was barely a whisper.
His head bobbed as he inspected me, seeing not what was on the outside, but straight into my soul, thoughts, and heart. “I will allow you the reprieve from assuming your duties because this battle means a great deal to you and your friends. But the other two requirements are out of my hands. I have no control over what happens in regard to those issues.”
“What does control them?”
“A future with too many variables to predict.”
“But there is a way?”
He nodded. “There are many ways, but only one path will take you to what you desire.”
“Can’t you just give me a straight answer?” I snapped. “What do I need to do?”
A smug smile curled the edge of his mouth. “Follow your heart. I cannot interfere.”
I looked up at the roof. Son of a bitch. I blew out a slow breath. This was what Holden wanted me to do, a voice in my head reminded me. He didn’t care if we could be together so long as I was still here. “So when I become a reaper, I will have new powers, but however they change me, I will still be in control?”
Death’s mouth moved like he was chewing on the words I spoke. “As much as anyone is in control of the ways they change.”
Clearly, ambiguous was the best I was going to get. The man before me had wisdom I couldn’t compete with, eternal calm that only put me on edge, and the quiet resilience of someone who knew he would always win. He didn’t need to bargain or push to get his way. Death had the final say. I gathered my courage and looked for peace within myself about this decision. It wasn’t the first time I had made a decision with only bad options. As much as I loved Holden, though, this wasn’t a decision I could make just because he wanted me to. I had to choose for myself, even if everything didn’t turn out perfectly. I was the only one who had to live with what I would become in the end. “Are they in pain? The souls you collect?”
He shook his head. “We are the reprieve from earthly pain and suffering. I deliver the souls to await judgment. From there, we are not involved.”
“How does it work? The taking them part?”
“When their time comes, you embrace them. Some will fight and some will accept, but the soul always submits.”
“I would have fought,” I said more to myself, picturing it in my head.
“And yet you submitted of you own free will earlier than planned. I had not even embraced you.” He smiled a little. “No one is ever taken before their time unless it is by their own will. I am not something to fear. I am the quiet in the chaos. The pathway to the next life.”
“I think it’s the next life that’s the problem.” I stared up at the sky. This wasn’t the future I had envisioned for myself, but I understood what he was saying. Obviously people had to die. That was how the world worked. Life, whether or not you were aware of it, was one constant, exhausting battle. The decisions we made, the ways we treated other people on our worst days, how we dealt with pain and loss—all battles.
Guardians and jinn were there sometimes, smoothing the way, but ultimately, the decisions were our own. Death taking us from one life to the next was really the only time we were allowed to exist in silence—then again, I couldn’t say what it was like in Heaven—that was something I would never know.
“What if I hate it?”
“If you are truly unhappy, I will embrace you.”
I ran my tongue over my lips, then pressed them together hard. “Okay.”
“This deal will never change. Once it is sealed, you cannot go back on it. I will come to collect you.”
I nodded.
He offered me his gloveless hand. I stared at it, frozen. Not from whatever Death had done around us, but from fear of all that I did not know and could not control. “Leaps of faith have never turned out well for me,” I said with a tight smile.
He merely waited.
“You should at the very least give her all her options,” a voice said behind me.
Death’s gaze turned cold as he looked past me, mouth creasing down. “I have,” his voice rumbled out like thunder.
“I disagree,” said the stranger with Holden’s eyes.
“You’re playing out of your depth once again, traveler. Olivia has two choices: she can succumb to her wound or she can let me help her. You have no ability to overcome her injury.”
“Perhaps not, but then again, maybe I do.”
Death’s hooded eyes darkened. “Do not
stand in my way. You will not be the first traveler I have taken.”
The man’s smile was sharp and pointed. “The Nanteos Cup can heal a great many injuries,” the man said, never taking his eyes off Death. “It just so happens I have it in my possession.”
Death laughed, a deep booming sound. “Is that still around? Even so, it will not work. Hers is a heavenly wound and earthly magic has no effect. Besides you would not use what little magic that cup has left on anyone besides yourself. What do you really seek, traveler?” They stared at each other for several long moments, then Death snapped his fingers and the man vanished. “He’s nothing more than a distraction.” He re-extended his hand. “He will find his way without you. Come. Let us complete our deal.”
“What is the Nanteos Cup?”
Death’s jaw hardened. “A mazer believed to have been fashioned from the True Cross. People who drink from it are said to be healed from a variety of illnesses.”
“Could it save me?”
He gave me a sympathetic smile. “Right now your heart and mind rebel against my offer, but I assure you it is the only way. With each use whatever power bestowed upon that bowl becomes less pronounced. Even had you been the first person to use it, it may have extended your life, but for what? So Lucifer could try to take it again? The help I offer you is true and final.”
Another option at this point was almost too good to be true.
“This offer expires when I leave,” Death stated. “I will not negotiate again.”
I looked up at the motionless rain drops, hovering around us just waiting to fall because there was no other direction for them to go but down. We didn’t have time to get the cup or figure out what that man wanted. Mammon was critical, and they couldn’t win without me, so I did the only thing I could do. I took Death’s hand and accepted his deal, mind, body, soul.
His thumb rubbed back and forth across mine, and warmth spread up my arm then shot through my body in streams. The ache in my chest stopped. Strength pooled inside of me. His lips touched mine softly. Not in a passionate way, but in a way that seemed to end my worry and resolve my mind to the dark road before me. I would be a reaper when Mammon was sent back to Hell. And I was okay with that.