The Reaper's Kiss

by Abigail Baker

  Brent leaned into his harness, tipping backward an inch. I grasped his arm and yanked him upright.

  “I won’t fall,” he said with a smile that was sensual enough to divert my panic for a millisecond. Brent’s eyes were brighter than I had ever seen them. It was the slivers of sunlight peeking through the souls that made them sparkle like this, wasn’t it?

  “What’s next?” A soul floated next to his head. He flicked at it as he would a bug. If a bodiless soul with no face could grimace, that one did before it floated away.

  “Next I hook up the wires,” I said, gripping the rope.

  The process was simple. Remove the input to the box that transmitted the signal to Styx’s main broadcasting center and then insert my own, which would both continue Stygian programming uninterrupted and allow my broadcast to override theirs at my chosen moment. Somehow, I managed to do this with only one hand.

  “Voila.” That was the most enthusiasm I could offer in the circumstances.

  “That’s it?” Brent must have expected me to give a hex, summoning forth wind, rain, and fire to make the Interceptor work.

  “Maximus?” Clover’s voice crackled through the walkie-talkie.

  Brent withdrew the walkie from his pocket. “Go for Max.”

  “I’m in the rooftop garden below you. I saw some suspicious people.”

  I got dizzy when I looked down twelve stories to see Clover’s navy blue blotch on the rooftop gardens encircled by the brick walls of the Château.

  “There are three Watchmen heading toward the stairs in the main tower,” she said. “One of them had red eyes. An Eidolon.”

  Brent and I exchanged looks. Neither of us bothered to mask our alarm.

  “If it’s Chad, it’s bad news.” Brent shoved the walkie into the pocket with the drill.

  “It’s set. We can go.” I pried my hand from the jumper box, letting it go as a mother lets go of her firstborn at preschool. “Let’s climb.”

  “We can’t let them see the box, or they’ll remove it.” Brent’s sudden interest in the distance to the ground turned my horror scenario into reality. “If they’re using the stairs, others are using the elevators.”

  My mouth turned pasty. “What are you saying?”

  “We can’t go back the way we came.” He reached for the blue coil around his leg and pulled the knot. The rope unraveled, spinning in a downward pirouette over the lip of the green roof. Hades and Brent only knew how far the rope descended. “Do you have that knife I gave you?”

  I clutched his shoulder with one hand. “Don’t do anything crazy.”

  “Do you have it?”

  “Uh-huh.” It was in my zipped pocket.

  “Good. When you get to the bottom, cut the rope. You know where to find Azim and Clover from there.” He brought my lips to his for a kiss. As he attempted to push me back, I clung to his shoulder and I breathed in his scent, holding him against me until time stopped. I should’ve kissed him harder and longer.

  “Find them and get out of here,” he said in my ear and then pried my fingers from him. He grasped the rudder of the scrap metal that locked me in place at his side.

  “Don’t let me go.”

  “Je t’aime, darlin’.”

  “No. Brent, wait!”

  His sapphire eyes and the twinkle of the steel belay device were the last things I saw before my stomach shot into my throat as I plunged toward the earth.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “United we will live forever.”

  —HermesHarbinger.com, 3:30 am ET 26 April Tuesday

  I stopped screaming when I realized I had feeling in my limbs. Adrenaline pulsed angrily from my toes to fingertips. I was dangling a few feet above the rooftop garden of the Château. The rope was long enough to send me into a harrowing controlled fall with a soft catch over the same place Clover had been standing seconds earlier. She was gone, racing to the car by now. I looked at the blue lifeline toward the roof. I couldn’t see Brent, but the weight on the rope told me he was still attached.

  “Ollie, cut the rope!” He shouted down to me. His voice was strained, as if he was engaged in a fight.

  The knife, I thought. We were tethered to each other; the rope was looped around the television antenna that was anchored to the roof, with one of us on one end, and the other on the opposite end. Brent would fall if I cut the rope, just as I would have fallen if he cut the rope from his end.

  But he had told me to cut myself free. And to trust him.

  “Okay?” I screamed back at him on the off chance that he didn’t mean what he had said.

  “Now!” was his command.

  “Fuck… fuck…” I fumbled with the zipper’s tab and dug for the knife in my left pocket. The blade glistened. I sawed at the taut rope. Blue fibers frayed bit by bit.

  Before I’d finished cutting, an object sliced through the air above and came to a crashing stop. A large stone urn cracked underneath the impact of a body in a black suit. His pant legs danced with his twitching limbs.

  A Watchman.

  I sawed at the rope with added ferocity. One last tap of the blade severed my connection with Brent. The landing from a fall of a few feet still knocked the air from me. There was no time to linger, sprawled on the garden terrace looking to the sky in wonderment of what I had survived, or in worry whether Brent was okay.

  I climbed to my feet, wobbling on jelly legs, and raced for the exit from the garden. Inside the hotel, I followed the red Sortie signs without concern for who might be behind me or if I was running into the thick of an ambush. I didn’t care if I had twenty people after me. Looking back to see twenty people would not yield any advantage. It did not help the victims in slasher movies—it wouldn’t help me.

  Each sign sent me past door after door of guest rooms until I came to a sterile gray stairwell. I flew down the steps.

  They’ll be waiting. The car would be ready, possibly rolling away when I ran to it.

  From a few flights above came the harried voices and stomping feet of the enemy. I soared over the last remaining steps, landed in a crouch at the base of the stairs, and lunged at the door in front. It dumped me into another empty hallway.

  My feet carried me left, toward the busy hotel lobby. I followed the polished wood walls for three turns until my feet hit stone. I burst into the foyer. The revolving brass doors spat guests in and out of the hotel. I shoved through a group of humans as I made for the exit.

  “Hey. Watch it,” they complained.

  “Scrivener,” shouted someone behind me.

  I couldn’t resist the urge to look over my shoulder, even though I knew better. I glanced to find a number of black suits flapping like grim streamers as the Watchmen made chase. Then I slipped through the doors. The April air bit at my hot cheeks. Flags cracked overhead. A car horn drew my attention to the Mercedes parked twenty feet away. There were only two heads in the car—Azim’s turban and Clover’s massive blonde mop. Brent hadn’t made it down from the tower. The Mercedes started rolling away as I closed in.

  “Come on, come on!” Azim shouted from the cracked window.

  I wrenched the back door open and dove across the backseat.

  “Where’s Brent?” Clover screamed.

  Not waiting for an answer, Azim screeched the wheels, and we took off. Through the rear window, I watched five Watchmen race out of the hotel. Two leaped over a collection of suitcases. Another tripped, sending luggage sliding over the pavement. Nearby humans glanced about, motionless in their confusion.

  I looked out the rear window for Brent. In my head, I had hoped that somehow he’d be in the car before me. But he wasn’t, and I couldn’t bear the thought that he had been captured, too.

  No matter the risk, I wouldn’t leave him behind. I never would, not as long as I had authority over my mind and body.

  “We can’t leave him!” I wildly searched for a navy blue jumpsuit amidst the chaos. “Stop the car, Azim.”

  “He said get to safety. That’
s what I’m doing.” The Mercedes sped up. We flew under an archway that spat us out onto rue des Carrières, running parallel to the Saint Lawrence.

  “I said stop!”

  Evidently, Brent had his own secrets. Azim had made a promise that he would protect me, but promises didn’t supersede the end of my nine-millimeter pressed to his ear. That was my secret back up plan.

  The car hydroplaned on melted snow before it came to a halt. We flew forward.

  I thrust the back door open and sprang out. Watchmen ran at us, not impeded by the distance we had gained. There was no sign of Brent. But I wouldn’t accept that he was stuck on the tower, nor would I accept that they had captured him. He could have transformed into his Eidolon form and done away with a handful of them at once.

  “Olivia,” Clover shouted. “Don’t.”

  The Watchmen kicked up their knees. I ran. I’d blow through them as a tornado of blazing fury if I had to. I pumped my arms and hands. With several feet to clear, I saw my heat’s reflection in the yellow glint of the Watchmen’s eyes.

  The collision of our bodies offset my balance. I went down on my back, gasping for air. Hands pulled at my jumpsuit, but as soon as they did, they let go. I was too hot to pin down. So, I clawed for anything I could—clothing, skin, and hair.

  “Hold her down,” shouted a Watchman.

  Scythe pins shimmered as we wrestled.

  “Get her legs.”

  Two navy blue jumpsuits raced toward me.

  “Subdue her before Head Reaper shows up,” someone said.

  “What about Hume?” someone asked.

  “They sent Chadwick after him. Get her underground.”

  Several Watchmen grasped my jumpsuit and yanked me onto my feet. Azim and Clover were shoved alongside me, their faces awash in fright. But the chorus of an Eidolon battle cry boomed off the midday tussle. The ground rumbled, sending our footholds off kilter.

  A blinding darkness overcame me so fast that I lost sense of what was up and what was down. Bone on bone clashes, grunts, ripped clothing, and that godforsaken howl flooded my ears.

  “Run.” Brent’s baritone shouted, inches from my ear.

  My feet pounded solid ground. The rubber soles gripped the pavement. I was running. The dark haze that had clouded my vision faded into clarity. Straight ahead was the Mercedes, its muffler smoking. Azim and Clover leaped into the car. Cool leather caught us when Brent and I dove into the backseat. Then Azim hit the gas.

  I yelped when I saw Brent’s jumpsuit. Blood gushed from his stomach. Redness pooled over the backseat, dripping onto the floor mats. The Eidolon…the powerful, indestructible hero…was hemorrhaging blood.

  “I told you not to worry about me.” His face twisted in agony. Brent wasn’t supposed to feel pain. He was an Eidolon, trained to take whatever Marin and his cronies would do to him. Brent shouldn’t know pain. “They’ll use me against you like they used Lorelei and Stone against you. Instead, you stuck around and almost got a face-to-face meeting with Marin.”

  “I had to help you.” He pushed my hands away when I reached out to him. “Let me see.”

  He peeled his hand from his abdomen, opening the torn jumpsuit. I grew faint at the frayed tissue, the sight of his innards oozing out of his body. He put a hand over his stomach to hide his injury, but it was too late. We saw.

  Clover threw both hands over her mouth. “Oh God.”

  An injury like that wouldn’t have time to heal. Brent was bleeding out too fast.

  “Chad and some of his friends jumped me after I fell eighteen stories. I’m toast.”

  I grew sick. He fell because of what I had done. He had become vulnerable to an attack because I had saved myself. “Brent, I thought you meant for me to cut the rope.” He also should have been able to turn into his dark Eidolon alter ego and save himself.

  “I did. I also said to get out of there. You shouldn’t have waited.”

  “How did they do this to you?”

  “Eidolons can take down other Eidolons. I was lucky I got away at all.”

  I pressed my lips together to keep tears from rolling onto my tongue and turning the flavor of this moment any more bitter than it already was.

  “Where should I go? We don’t want them following us back to the Isle,” Azim said, as his attention danced between the road ahead of us and the road behind us.

  After a series of shallow breaths, Brent glanced through the back window as Azim increased speed. Garik’s white van was catching up. Every time an enemy van attempted to pass Garik, he swerved to one side, nearly tipping his own van to do so. There was little hope of us outrunning the Watchmen if Garik couldn’t hold them off. With Brent injured as he was, we would not get away if they intercepted our course.

  “Brent, please.” My voice was mostly air. “Don’t give up. We’ll get you help.”

  “You can’t…put me before everyone else.”

  “I won’t leave you.” I touched his shoulder. This time he didn’t shrug me off. I watched my hands pull at his jumpsuit to cover his injury, to stop him from bleeding out. But the effort was meaningless. No cleverly designed tourniquet would be enough this time. “Azim, get to a hospital. They’ll stop his bleeding.”

  “You do that, and I’ll drain you,” Brent hissed. “Head for Pierre-Laporte Bridge.”

  Azim’s eyes flickered, recalculating our getaway.

  “I’m the boss here,” I bit. “This is my plan.”

  “Don’t listen to her, Azim.”

  “You don’t get to do this, Brent.” I fanned my hand over his knee and put the other to his shoulder to hold myself in place as our car zipped through the city streets. Pierre-Laporte Bridge appeared at the foot of the escarpment.

  Silent, Brent stared ahead, his head bobbing with the potted road. Over his shoulder, the white vans were careening in and out of traffic. Our destiny was about to bear down on us, and I couldn’t face it with Brent giving up.

  So he saw the bigger picture—the Stygian revolution—come to pass. But in the end, it didn’t mean anything if he did not see the mountains again. He deserved that. He earned it after what he’d endured.

  The tires of the Mercedes made contact with Pierre-Laporte Bridge. A small bump jostled everyone in the car. Clover let out a hushed sniffle.

  “When you get to the middle of the bridge, stop. I’ll take over driving.”

  “What are you going to do?” I asked.

  “Distract them long enough for you to get away.”

  “No. That’s stupid. Come with us.”

  The sloped beams of the suspension bridge passed overhead. Those white vans flew down Cape Diamond. This nightmare was unraveling too fast. I had no time to prepare—but for what? Escape? Erebus? Surrender?

  “I love you, Ollie,” Brent uttered.

  “We’re almost there,” Azim said.

  Soon, the car skidded and stopped. Traffic veered around us. Horns blared. I looked through the rear window again. The vans made it to the far end of the bridge. When I turned back, Brent was gone, and Azim wrenched me out of the backseat.

  “No, Brent.” I fought Azim’s hold. He and Clover tried to help me stand.

  The driver side door slammed. Brent was behind the steering wheel.

  I dove for the handle. “Don’t do this.”

  Azim threw both arms around my waist as I pounded my fists on the glass. Brent didn’t flinch when the window cracked. The Mercedes engine revved. The car flew backward, spun in a half-circle, and took off.

  Dread fluttered violently in my ribcage as I watched my lover—my Reaper, my friend—barrel toward the enemy with our luggage and dreams stowed in the trunk. At my feet was a pool of his blood, left behind to remind me why I had to let go, that he would likely die whether he stayed with me or saved us from danger. I put my hand to my chest because if I didn’t, my heart would spill out.

  “We have to run.” Azim grabbed my hand.

  “The river,” I said, ignoring the fact that I wasn’t much
of a swimmer.

  Azim’s olive eyes danced between a bridge truss and me. “Then we jump.”

  “Jump?” Clover squealed.

  The Mercedes collided with one of the vans, sending it spinning into oncoming traffic. Brent would do as much damage as he could. It’s what I would have done—snag up a mess worthy of the front cover of Reaper Monthly.

  “We can’t leave him,” screamed Clover as Azim hoisted her onto the bridge truss.

  “Olivia, come on.” He climbed beside her.

  I put my hand to my necklace to feel for Eve before I grabbed the steel truss. I gave one last glance at the anarchy Brent caused and then down at the ripples of waves of the Saint Lawrence River, a hundred feet below—the same river Brent and I had plunged into from the bowels of Lethe a week and half earlier.

  If you can hear me, Brent, I love you, too. I will come back for you—I promise.

  Azim took my hand in his.

  And we jumped to our escape.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “A populace never rebels from passion for attack, but from impatience of suffering.”

  —Edmund Burke

  28 April

  “Head Reaper Marin has brought terrorist Eidolon Brent Rutherford Hume back from the brink of death. The Head Reaper’s loyalists are now able to interrogate Hume on the whereabouts of Master Scrivener Olivia Dormier and several accomplices who have yet to be identified. Eidolon Hume has been formally charged with treason, a Level Ten Offense. This charge follows a list of offenses including sugar trafficking, list pilfering, harboring of a terrorist, and refusal of duty.”

  The news telecast was drowned by a cacophony of shattered glass and complaints that stretched from one side of the rebel cottage to the other. In the middle of the chaos, and in direct eyeshot of the television, I sat, and I said nothing.

  “Marin’s keeping him alive until he sings,” someone roared over indecipherable shouting.

  “You’re wrong. Brent won’t give up information. They want him alive long enough to lure us out of hiding.” Garik’s accent wasn’t as smooth as usual. He was on edge.