Reaper (Lightbringer)

by K. D. McEntire

  “And Wendy, if you ever want to drive Emma nutso, misuse ‘lie’ and ‘lay’ in a sentence. Or, if you really want to get Emmaline's panties in a twist, mix up ‘I’ and ‘me.’” Jane giggled and adopted a valley-girl tone. “So, like, me and my friends went to the mall—”

  “I will get through this day,” Emma said abruptly. “I will get through this day. I will get through this day without killing them both even if it gives me an aneurism, I swear on the names of the Good Ones.”

  “I haven't done anything wrong,” Wendy protested.

  “You will,” Emma ground out. “You didn't sleep and you can't help yourself. And Jane isn't helping.” She punched her cousin on the thigh. “Your breast is exposed and you're scandalizing Wendy. Cover it. She's got a tough road ahead of her today, she doesn't need you flashing her.”

  “Oh yeah, hey, I heard it through the grapevine that you were some sort of natural!” Jane said, rolling her eyes at Emma and shifting so that her shirt was back in its proper place. “Is that really true?”

  “Yeah,” Wendy said, not missing Emma's grimace in the rearview mirror. “Apparently I am. Why?”

  “Just curious. I've never met one. I always thought they were, you know, like Bigfoot or something. High five!” Jane stuck her hand out and Wendy, feeling as if she'd inadvertently stumbled into some Alice in Wonderland offshoot with ghosts, tentatively high-fived her back.

  “Ssss,” Jane hissed, holding her hand limp and waving it frantically, pretending to cool it off, “Hot!”

  “Haha,” Wendy said, trying not to imagine the natural Nana Moses had told her about, unable to reap and burning to a crisp from the inside out. How hot had she gotten at the end? Had her flesh really burned up or had that just been poetic license?

  “So you're probably wondering why I'm tagging along, huh?” Jane tweaked an earring and stretched languorously, so that her spine crackled. The pointy heels of her shoes scraped the dash.

  “My car is more expensive than your skin,” Emma snapped, shoving Jane's feet off the interior. “Watch it!”

  “Bite me,” Jane replied coolly.

  “The thought had passed my mind, yeah,” Wendy said.

  “We're getting you marked up supa’ soon, none of this pansy protection-only crap your momma laid down on you,” Jane said, crossing her left leg over her right. “Great G'ma wants me to survey what I gotta work with as pertaining to that pert flesh o'yours, cuz, since I do most of the ink for the fam, don'tcha know.”

  “Hey now, I never agreed to that. I don't want any more tattoos,” Wendy said, irritated that this strange family was already issuing edicts. “Mine work just fine.”

  “No. Your skin has to be redone,” Emma said. “Your current tattoos hardly protect you from Shades, much less anything serious. If you're worried about future employment, Jane will keep them to your torso and upper thighs. She's quite good at concealing the ink.”

  “Only way, sorry, I know it sucks.” Jane traced a pattern on what appeared to be a bare patch of skin on her shoulder but as Wendy looked more closely she realized that there were fine lines etched there as well. White ink.

  “Maybe,” Wendy hedged, marveling how closely she had to stare at the ink to see it, “white ink like yours might be okay.”

  “Awesome blossom. We'll do your measurements this morning before the main event, and after I see how you move I'll have a good idea how to tat you up,” Jane said approvingly, tapping her shoulder and winking. “Aaand, we're here.”

  “Here” turned out to be Fort Funston. They parked near the beach, and Jane bounded out of the car, leaving Wendy to struggle out of the narrow backseat on her own. Emma popped the trunk and disappeared for a moment, returning with a large beach towel, a threadbare Army duffel bag, and a handful of scrunchies. She handed a scrunchie to Wendy and gathered up her long hair as she disappeared down the closest dune, heading toward the water.

  “Okay, girly-girl, time to get this party started.” Spinning around and around, Jane laughed as the wind picked up strands of her gleaming blue hair, and she flung her arms out, embracing the sunrise before she nudged Wendy in the direction Emma had gone. “Let's do this thing!”

  “But this is Fort Funston,” Wendy protested, glancing around the parking lot. It was bare of people, but several cars suggested that others were about. “People hike and walk their dogs and hang-glide just over that hill; we can't do this here!”

  “You just have to know the right places in the park,” Emma's voice echoed from near the water. “The bunker is this way.”

  “Bunker?”

  Hesitating, Wendy sank as deep into the shadows as she could, nervous fingers splayed across her chest and gut. If she'd known this was part of the training, she wasn't sure she'd have been so gung-ho about doing it. Did her mother have to do something like this? It hardly seemed like the sort of nonsense Mary would put up with.

  “Come on, sunshine,” Jane said, not unkindly, pausing at the top of the hill. “Emma's not pulling your leg about the bunkers.”

  “Aren't the bunkers abandoned?” Wendy asked, following as slowly as she dared. “And locked?”

  “We're Reapers,” Jane said simply, guiding Wendy toward a rusted bunker door set close to the sea. It was layered thickly with bright graffiti, each colorful design outdoing the last. “You think something simple like a lock is gonna keep us out?”

  “I'm not an idiot,” Wendy said testily. “Even a beginner can see that the Never is strong here.” She jerked her thumb toward a nearby sagging, rickety pier in the living world that was still strong and straight in the Never.

  “Good eye,” Jane said approvingly. “But no, I meant these.” She rifled in her pocket and pulled out a key ring. Most of the keys on the ring were old and rusted, but one shone like new. “It's all legit.”

  “Keys? Actual keys to the bunkers?” Wendy had to forcibly close her mouth to keep it from gaping. “Do I want to even know how you got those?”

  “With this family? Hah, probably not.” Jane tossed the key ring to Emma, waiting at the doorway to the bunker. Emma caught it one-handed.

  “Every time I think I have you guys figured out you go and throw me for another loop,“ Wendy muttered. She had a bad feeling about the rusting hulk and the ease with which Emma and Jane were treating this entire excursion. Part of her wanted to turn around and hike to the closest bus stop; another part, however, was desperately curious what the inside of the bunker looked like. She glanced over her shoulder at their footprints leading down the hill, noting that they'd walked in a single line, obscuring who'd gone before. If this were one of those CSI shows, she quietly mused, no one would be able to tell how many of us there were by our footprints alone.

  “Come on, sunshine,” Jane said, grabbing Wendy just above the elbow and forcefully steering her away from the light and sand to the rusted metal doorway. “We've adventuring to do. Here's the hidey-hole, Alice. Let's go visit Wonderland. Or Neverland. I get the two confused sometimes. Some kinda land, it don't matter much, at least not to you, not now. Ready?”

  With Jane's fingers splayed against her back, Wendy grudgingly descended the creaking steps into the bowels of the bunker. It didn't look like much on the outside, just a garish, largish metal hut near the seashore, sand and scrub all around. Once you got underground, however, there was so much more. The bunker stretched in a long row of rooms for as far as Wendy could make out, dimly lit by flickering incandescent bulbs screwed loosely into wires and dangling dangerously overhead. The first room was large, larger than the first floor of Wendy's house, and empty save for a huge faded circle in old yellow paint. There were brown splotches and white streaks all over the room, but mainly in the circle.

  “Is that bird poop?” Wendy asked, stepping off the last step and kneeling down to get a closer look at the streaks. Whatever creature made the mess, it certainly looked like it didn't belong underground. “How did birds get down here?”

  “Mystery of mysteries,” Jane said b
reezily. “Hey, Emma, look, I don't want one of those ancient bulbs popping and dropping glass on my head. You got the lantern ready?”

  Emma, setting down a military-grade camping lantern beside the far curve of the circle, knelt beside it a moment, and then flicked a thumbs-up toward Jane. “Go.”

  Jerking to her feet, Wendy found herself shivering as Jane slapped a switch near the door with one hand.

  The room, hardly lit to begin with, dropped into sullen darkness. Suddenly a disembodied hand squeezed her left hip and Wendy yelped, jumping aside.

  “Honestly, Jane,” Emma said coolly, stepping to the left of Wendy and laying down the beach towel, settling the duffel bag on top. “Must you be so vulgar? Can't you see she's embarrassed enough as it is? Must you paw at her like she's one of your little sororstitute sluts? It's hardly humorous or endearing.”

  “You freakin’?” Jane asked Wendy, surprised. “I'm just kidding. We're out in the middle of nowhere and it's just us three lovelies here. Scout's honor.” She brought four fingers up to her forehead. “Is that how you do this thing?” she asked Emma after a moment. “I can never remember.”

  “You dropped out of Girl Scouts after two weeks,” Emma said wearily, standing aside and shedding her clothing with a systematic ease that startled Wendy. She disrobed mechanically, stripping bare without a wasted motion. Even naked, she was the epitome of cool, flawless beauty, long copper hair drawn off her face and sleek lines lit by the steady, low lantern light. Irritated, Wendy admitted to herself that she was jealous. It hardly seemed fair that girls as model-gorgeous as Emma existed in the first place, much less that she was a relative and a doctor.

  “You're getting nekkid?” Jane asked, hunkering down with her sketchbook. “Color me surprised. I never figured Miss Stick-Up-Her-Butt would, well, show said butt.” She eyed her cousin and grinned. “Though it's an admittedly well-tanned butt for such a pale chick.”

  “It is only fair,” Emma replied.

  “Your butt?”

  “My being unclothed,” Emma said through clenched teeth. “If Wendy must battle disrobed, so must I.”

  “Wait, excuse me?” Defensively, Wendy crossed her arms over her chest. “Who said anything about fighting naked?”

  Emma raised an eyebrow; her expression was cool but the set of her shoulders conveyed her irritation. “It is how it is done.”

  “Yeah, um, no. I would've remembered that bit in the Welcome to Our Weird Ol’ Family welcome packet and I certainly didn't sign up for this. Especially not in a semi-public location—‘this is how it's done’ not withstanding, sorry.”

  “Don't be such a wimp,” Jane said, yawning. “We all have to go through it at one point or another. And some of us aren't cute little things like you. You'll be fine. I won't even take pictures and load them on the Internet. Scout's honor. Never even occurred to me. Nope.”

  “Why is it necessary?” Wendy pressed, backing away so that she faced the room and non-nude safety was only a short sprint up the stairs.

  “It takes a trained eye to see, but we bring a version of our clothing into the Never with us,” Emma explained, expression purposefully bland and blank. “That clothing will hinder our activities and your training.”

  “That's what she said,” Jane joked.

  “And it's completely necessary?” Wendy asked, hating how whiny she sounded but unable to stop her trembling.

  “Completely,” Emma assured her. “It's impossible otherwise.” She paused—for the briefest moment Wendy fancied that Emma felt badly for her—and then her expression was calm and clear again. “As Jane said, every Reaper must go through it.”

  “Okay,” Wendy said begrudgingly, crouching down to unlace her shoes; her throat felt tight and swollen, her cheeks hot and flushed. “I hella don't like it, but…okay.”

  “Well if you two are going to go at it right away, I better measure you now, before Emma tears you into teeny tiny pieces,” Jane said, hopping to her feet and grabbing Wendy's wrist in her hand as Wendy stood. She spanned Wendy's wrist with her fingers, “hmm”ing to herself under her breath. “Okay, now spin around.”

  “I'm confused,” Wendy said as Jane circled her, occasionally squatting down and grabbing a body part—palming her ankle here, and then reaching up and squeezing the opposing thigh. “What are you doing?”

  “She's feeling where the holes in your Light are,” Emma explained, sorting through the duffel bag and drawing out a pair of long, slender bone knives decorated with familiar, arching Celtic knots. They curved wickedly in the dim lamplight. “To better cover your defenses there.”

  “You actually do have to be naked for the important parts,” Jane added, “since I need to see where your current ink ends and get an idea of how the layout of your trunk goes—you know, scars and such. But this little bit, the measuring, you don't have to be bare for. I'm sorry I embarrassed you earlier, with the hip thing. You looked so edgy about the dark, I was just having a little fun.”

  Jane stepped back, jotting notes down on a small sketchpad and popping another bubble. “If it makes you feel any better, usually there's some ancient crone doing the booby-grabbing and I, personally, think that I'm much easier on the eyes. Plus, compared to my grandma, I'm like ten times as gentle. Grandma Elise's got fingers like a vice.”

  “Not really making me feel better,” Wendy muttered.

  “Meh, I'll ease you into it,” Jane promised. “We'll do all the touchy-feely stuff clothed, okay?”

  Running her hand along the dip above Wendy's hips, Jane spun Wendy to the left and Wendy felt a small, savage pinch on her hip at the height of the twirl. Wendy thought to protest but Jane was deep in concentration, leaning close enough for Wendy to examine the double-keyhole etched in white ink at the center of Jane's largest shoulder tat as she pressed hands flat against Wendy's gut and thigh. Jane must not have realized that she'd hurt her, Wendy realized, absently rubbing the sore spot.

  “We've waited as long as we can,” Emma said gently, checking her watch as Jane finally stepped back. “It is time to begin.”

  Wendy grimaced. “Last time I ask. No other way?”

  “None.” Emma waved the tip of the dagger at Wendy's midsection. “We're all girls here and I'm a doctor. It's nothing I've never seen before.”

  “And I'm an artist,” Jane added helpfully. “I can't tell you the number of nudes I had to sketch in school. It'll be nothing, I promise. After I'm done you can even keep the originals.”

  Emma unsheathed a knife. “Disrobe.”

  Turning her back on them, Wendy gingerly stripped. The air was surprisingly warm, Wendy noted as she hesitantly stepped into the light. “Okay. What's next?”

  Emma stepped forward and handed her the bone knives. “Take these.”

  “What are they? I mean, besides knives? And I should probably mention right now that I've never, ever held a knife like this before.”

  “They're family heirlooms,” Jane said, glancing up from her sketchbook where she was drawing madly. “Don't break ’em. And stay in the light if you can.”

  “Don't worry about wielding them just yet. All you must do is hold them. No,” Emma said, adjusting Wendy's grip, “like this. If you hold them like that you might cut your own wrist.” She tapped Wendy's wrist. “Looser. Looser, I said! You're going to hurt yourself at this rate.”

  “I didn't ask for this,” Wendy couldn't help whining.

  “You wanted to be trained. This is what training entails. Looser! Good. Much better.” Emma stepped back. “Now we stand at the opposite sides of the circle,” she instructed, moving the edge of the faded arc. “You tell me when you're ready.”

  “Ready for what?”

  “Just when you're ready.”

  “Don't you get any weapons? Am I supposed to come at you? Seriously, guys, I have no clue what's going on here.”

  “Tell me when you're ready,” Emma said patiently.

  After long moments of alternating between watching Emma, looking at her own
naked feet, and glancing furtively at Jane still furiously drawing away, Wendy took a deep breath and said, “I'm ready.”

  The attack was instantaneous. It was so quick that Wendy staggered back, gasping for air, and stunned that anyone could move like that. Emma, already back on the other side of the circle, danced in a sinuous, elegant wave, darting forward and tagging Wendy painfully—a sharp tap that Wendy could feel in her teeth and bones.

  The first blow, she quickly realized, had only been a test. When the next blows came she didn't even have the courtesy of seeing Emma flash forward; one moment she was there and the next her entire body stung. It took Wendy several more painful attacks to realize that while Emma was touching her with her fingertips briefly in the living world, her attacks were simultaneously coming from the Never. She was using her ribbons of Light to press into Wendy's soul and it was incredibly painful.

  “Break! Uncle! Truce!” Wendy gasped at last, staggering over to the wall. She'd tried opening herself up to the Light in order to fight on turf she was stronger in, but every time she began the process Emma's Light would snap at her at least a dozen times, the stinging pain slowing Wendy down.

  “No truce,” Emma said beside her before pushing Wendy over. Wendy caught herself in time to keep from barking her shin on the edge of the lantern, but scraped her palm in the process. “The dead will not give you a break in battle; neither shall I.”

  “Whoa, whoa,” Jane suddenly said, hopping to her feet and setting down the sketchpad, scowling at Wendy as she looked her closely up and down. She held out a hand and helped Wendy to her feet. “Wait a second. Emma…are you…are you doing what I think you're doing? Or, I guess, did? Did do? Done? Whatever.”

  “That depends on what you suppose I am doing or have done.” Emma's face was like carved ice, her expression immutable.

  “Well, I'm no expert, but it looks like you're—and look, I know you, so I'm sorry for even suggesting this—but it looks like you're binding her.” Jane thrust her hands into the air in a warding off gesture. “I'm sorry!”