The Reaper's Sacrifice

by Abigail Baker

  Sliding across the grass, I had to resist Brent’s gravity. I clutched the lip of the marble fountain. Errol did the same. Trivials attempted to skitter away in their spiderlike states.

  Then, as quickly as it began, the battle fell quiet. Death’s vacuum stopped. My grip slackened on the marble. I peered across the fountain clouded with ruby water to see Brent drop to his knees.

  Delia, Chad, and Nicodemus raced out of Wrightwick’s front door, intent on grabbing Brent before the Trivials got to him. They proved too late.

  A Trivial drew his weapon on Brent as he knelt on the gravel driveway, broken and bleeding. I dove to his side without considering whether the Trivial would turn the gun on me. I didn’t care. The Reaper whom I loved was finally, after years of separation, within my reach, and I would go down protecting him right here if it came to it.

  “Stop!” Delia ran down the steps with a shotgun locked on the Trivial.

  “Back off, Scrivener,” he bit out.

  “I’ll blow you straight down to Erebus if you hurt him.” There was something in Delia’s eyes I admired and feared. She would not hesitate to pull the trigger.

  “He is the enemy. He’ll be punished like one.” The Trivial’s upper lip twisted in scorn. “I have no reservations about destroying you, Eidolon.”

  “What are you waiting for then?” Brent wheezed, his Southern brogue beautiful even when strained. “By all means, take the last shot.”

  “How about I shoot your little slut here?” He put the gun to my forehead. I didn’t slink back from Brent’s side or the gun. Brent was the only one who could send the remainder of my broken soul to the Afterlife. I didn’t fear death quite like I once had. I simply feared living without him by my side from here on out.

  Delia sidestepped the Trivial and into my line of sight. Her brows were furrowed. “You hurt either one of them, Homefry, and I’ll blow that buzz cut right off your unsightly head.”

  “He led an army onto our land and attacked. How can you want to save him?” He looked at Brent and then at me, unsure of whom he wanted to punish first. “You sluts are more trouble than you’re worth! Always using pussy to manipulate others. We’d do better without you!”

  Delia cocked the gun. “Our pussies are just fine. Maybe if you got one once in a while, you wouldn’t hate them so much.”

  He pushed out his jaw, stepped back, and aimed the gun at Brent again. “It’s time for you to die, Eidolon.”

  “Enough!” Errol hollered. “Put the gun down.”

  “Master Dennison, by all means we must make this Eidolon pay. He is the reason Trivials have been disappearing.”

  “I said put the bloody gun down!”

  The Trivial’s gun flew out of his hand and plopped into the fountain with a small splash. It took me a moment to realize that Errol had removed it from his grasp without ever touching it.

  “Brent fought that monster in there,” Delia explained. “I saw him when he attacked Olivia. The Eidolons swarmed me the moment I tried to fight, Errol. They were after Scriveners. Not the Trivials or the Phlegethon.”

  Brent slumped forward, spitting up blood. I reached out to him but yanked my hands back.

  “Brent, I can’t touch you,” I whimpered, smelling his familiar cologne of sweat. “My hands are too hot.”

  “He’s going to die.” Delia lowered her gun to her side. “Errol, help him.”

  My vision blurred with tears at the sight of his back muscles shaking to hold himself steady, the rise and fall of his shallow breaths, and the blood seeping from his gashes. Brent wasn’t supposed to be injured or weakened. He was a king buried under a grotesque suit of Death, one who had stood strong against Marin the last time we touched. He had grabbed ahold of a loophole in Styx’s system and used it to save me. I had believed for two years that Brent was destined to remove Marin from his place. But here he was, crouched in defeat, felled by an Eidolon twice his size and powerful enough to deal a mortal blow.

  Errol made a rigid, almost forced step forward, but a Trivial next to him slapped his hand over Errol’s chest.

  “We shouldn’t offer him any more than we’d offer the others,” said the Trivial. “We cannot withstand another attack. Send his head back to Marin as a warning.”

  “He’s not the enemy,” I plead. “I need him to live!”

  “These are the rules of war, Scrivener,” the Trivial hissed. “We take no prisoners.”

  “Don’t you dare let him die, you hear?” Delia’s voice was shrill with indignation. “You’ll regret it. Show him mercy.”

  As a deliberate interruption in the standoff, Nicodemus knelt alongside Brent. The weight of everyone’s stare turned to the old man as he pulled Brent’s head and shoulders into his lap.

  “Come now, my dear friend,” Nicodemus said. “Breathe. Keep that heart ticking.”

  Delia set her gun aside as she, too, knelt down. She laced her reddened fingers with mine, her fingernails cutting into my skin.

  Brent’s cerulean eyes fluttered as he fell in and out of consciousness.

  Even if we offset a punishment from the Trivials and Errol, what could we do from here? Brent had sustained a fatal hit back in Québec when he had fallen from the roof of the Château. I had prepared myself to never see him again after that, but he’d survived under Head Reaper’s care. He had been given an exemption from death so that he could be put on trial and punished.

  Here in California, far from the self-serving but healing hand of Marin, how would we save him?

  Someone crouched beside me as I wracked my brain for ideas. Through my tears, I saw Errol. He handed me a knife.

  “Take it,” he said.

  I didn’t take it. “Why?”

  “Heal him.”

  “Show me how.”

  He slapped the hilt of the knife into my palm and thrust my arm at Brent’s chest. “I don’t know how. It can be done. You have to do it.”

  How could I heal an Eidolon on the verge of death, the one who held half of my soul?

  “The Phlegethon, Errol. Wouldn’t that be better?” Delia asked.

  “Let Olivia try first. We should only use the river if we must.”

  “But you’re the Master,” I said, shaking. “You’ve gotta have some ability to heal.”

  “If I did, we wouldn’t be arguing.” The veins in his forehead bulged. “Our only hope is that healing is one of your Master skills.”

  “Ollie,” Nicodemus’s tenor drew me from the horror of not only facing Brent’s death, but my own, should he expire now. This was a battle for three lives, a battle I somehow had to fight with zero experience. “You can do this, for the both of you.”

  Trial by fire—that’s what this would be. I had thrust myself into a fight ill prepared, and now I was going to have to save the Eidolon that I loved with power I wasn’t even sure I had.

  I readjusted my knees on the gravel, overlooking how the rocks cut into my bones.

  “Teacup, you can do this.” Delia’s brown eyes blinked assurance.

  With a sigh, I leaned over Brent’s chest as it kept gushing blood, and locked eyes with him. He returned a vacant stare, but deep inside of that gaze was utter trust in me.

  After a roll of the dagger between my fingers to familiarize myself with my tool, I angled the tip of the blade over his chest as if I was going to stab him. The steel tip of the blade glowed red from my touch.

  I closed my eyes tight and took in one calming breath.

  Repay him for all he’s done for me.

  The tip of the knife’s edge met his right chest, just above the gash. I didn’t open my eyes when he convulsed or when Delia and Errol grunted to restrain him.

  “Breathe, Ollie,” I said to myself. “Breathe with him. For him. Breathe…”

  The blood, the cool mountain breeze, the handfuls of eyes bearing down on us fell away like pieces of a crumbling puzzle. Everything faded but Brent, and even then, it wasn’t him, but his gray Eidolon flesh beneath my fingers. A design mad
e itself known on his body. Crimson and pink lines danced jubilantly from the slightest touch of my fingertip. Each pass of the blade carved the lines of an intricate tattoo that I was too close to recognize. The lines it burned into his skin were what mattered, not the end result.

  “Olivia,” a voice said from a far-off place. “Olivia?”

  I forced my attention away from the final pass of the blade, but nobody was nearby. No allies. No enemies. No Wrightwick. Only blackness. I was inside an abyss.

  “Olivia, come back.”

  “Errol?”

  A pair of hands gently clasped my shoulders. The throb of rocks pushing into my bones returned. I blinked. And then I breathed in and held the air in my lungs for as long as I could stand it.

  At long last, I opened my eyes, or maybe they focused through the darkness. I would never know, and it didn’t matter. My vision returned. Everyone wore panic.

  The gashes on Brent’s chest grew bloodier with each lungful of air. His wound wasn’t healed.

  He was in his humanoid shape now, the same Southern rogue with blue eyes, dark hair, and a five-o-clock shadow that I remembered so fondly. This was not Death in flesh, not a suit of gray, rigid skin. The gift of a human form, one he had earned over decades of servitude and one that had been ripped away by Marin, was back in splendid magnificence.

  But he was still dying. I had failed.

  The knife slipped from my fingers and fell to the gravel with a thud. I was speechless. I’d believed that I could do this. For some stupid reason, I’d believed.

  “Delia,” Errol said, his voice wracked with tension as he dug his arms underneath Brent’s limp body, “help me get him to the river.”

  “Will there be enough to save him?” She lifted his head and shoulders with Nicodemus’s help as I sat back on my heels in paralyzing disbelief.

  “If there isn’t…then we lose all three of ’em.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.”

  —Aristotle

  I had always imagined that in an emergency I would be a first responder, someone who was on the frontline of the disaster, offering my assistance. That was the type of Stygian I wanted to be. Yet that wasn’t who I was as I followed Delia, Nicodemus, Errol, and Brent into the basement of Wrightwick. Something in me was broken all of a sudden. I wasn’t the fearless Scrivener who ran headlong into Lethe to save Brent and my allies.

  They struggled to get him down the winding staircase, and I couldn’t help. They struggled to lower him into the trickling brook called the Phlegethon, and I didn’t help. I stood over them, mouth agape, fear twisted like vines around every bone.

  I failed. I failed. I failed, played in my head, over and over.

  I failed Nicodemus. I failed Brent. He’d never failed me. I couldn’t move my body in a way that allowed me to participate. Perhaps it was for the best, however. No reason to add another failure to the list right before my life, and Nicodemus and Brent’s were stamped out for good.

  “Flip him,” Errol said.

  They wasted no time turning Brent face down, pushing the wounds of his chest into the river. Delia pulled his head upright, just enough to keep his mouth and nose above water. The river began to bubble around Brent’s body, like the mythical Phlegethon that supposedly boiled souls. Errol, Nicodemus, and Delia jumped aside to avoid the heat. Brent’s face leaned on a rock jutting above the flow of the water, leaving him able to breathe as the river worked on healing him.

  We waited as we stood over him. The Eidolons in the pods nearby watched. Everyone waited, some of us with bated breath, and some of us breathing fast and shallow.

  And then, after what felt like years, Brent moved. He lifted his head from the rock, put his hands underneath his shoulders, and pushed back to his knees. Brent’s half-open eyes scanned everyone and then stopped on me.

  My center shook. My knees gave way.

  He’s alive. He’s alive…

  I refused to leave Brent after a group of the Trivials carried him to my room to recover. Their animosity toward Brent hadn’t dissipated—as if hundreds of years of resentment would just disappear anyway. I knew a lot about grudges, how they made people act irrationally, and I wouldn’t leave Brent at the risk of his life.

  They had laid him on my bed and swept a blanket over him. One Trivial, who didn’t seem quite as bitter as the rest, brought in fresh clothing and set it on the vanity table. With a solemn expression, he nodded and left without speaking.

  For a while, I stood next to the bed, watching the steady rise and fall of Brent’s chest as he slept, comforted in knowing that he was safe. I hadn’t yet allowed the floodgates of emotion to open. All I could ponder was the look in his eyes when he’d first seen me, bookended by Gizmo’s merciless attacks. I had wanted to throw myself into Brent’s arms and hold him, even at the threat of losing my head.

  Now, I wanted to fall to my knees in gratitude. I had spent too much time pining for him, craving him, needing him. He had been given back to me, and with such luck, I was tempted to ask for Mama back, too. And if that wasn’t too much, Gerard and Eve. Maybe even my life back in Québec City.

  “He’ll be fine in a few hours. Just needs rest now.” Errol’s whisper startled me. “I’ve sent reinforcements to guard the Manor. If there are any more Eidolons, they won’t succeed. I’ll leave you two alone. You probably want—”

  “Errol.” I grabbed his hands, holding them with renewed strength. His grip felt lifeless. “I…” My throat constricted. “Thank you for saving him.”

  I did not yet know if this was a victory, or if there was a greater force at play, pulling on the marionette strings as we acted out some unseen will.

  His jaw dimpled from tension. “There’s somethin’ I need to share.” He dug his hands into his pockets. In reply, I crossed my arms over my chest, ready to listen. “The rebellion is goin’ to happen now whether we want it or not. I need to tell you somethin’ about Marin before we get involved.”

  I cocked an eyebrow. “Go on.”

  “Before he secluded himself inside Lethe, I knew him. Marin did things that were nae typical of a Reaper.”

  My mouth parted slightly as I waited quietly for him to continue.

  Only after glancing at Brent and then back to me did he start speaking again. “No one knows about his…talents because he erases people’s memories in Lethe. He erases memories because he’s hidin’ somethin’. Somethin’ huge.”

  After a pause chockfull of various thoughts and theories, I said, “What sort of talents do you mean?”

  He moved in closer, putting his lips inches from my ear. “Keep this between us for now. But I think Marin might not be a Grim Reaper.”

  “An Eidolon?” I asked, because it seemed a reasonable guess.

  “Much worse than that.”

  What could be worse than an Eidolon, especially one like Gizmo? I was about to ask this, when Errol stepped back. His face wore concern like I had not yet seen in him. This secret terrified him, and for that reason, it should terrify me.

  “I must get back downstairs,” he said, and was gone.

  I remained by Brent’s side as I mulled over what it was Errol had meant to say. If Marin was worse than an Eidolon, and wasn’t a Grim Reaper, there was only one other option that I knew of. Marin was a Scrivener. And if he was, he was a Master Scrivener.

  So how did one Master Scrivener take out another? Did that mean that a Master Scrivener and an Eidolon still needed to work together to take Marin down for good?

  …

  Sunshine cut through the arched windows, soaking us in warmth. I wasn’t ready to awaken and face another day of God knew what. My body ached right down to my core. If I had to fight more Eidolons, I would’ve been a liability. Even comfortably in bed, I hurt.

  That brief exchange between Errol and me left me reeling. As I thought about all the ways in which a Master Scrivener could take over Styx, I eventually concluded that it
was not true. Marin had to be a Grim Reaper in order to cross over the millions of souls that came through Lethe. He had to have that skillset to even be qualified. Of course, if he was a Master Scrivener, it explained why he hid away inside Lethe and erased our memories upon departing the realm of forgetfulness.

  And as I vacillated between Marin the Master Scrivener and Marin the Head Reaper, I wondered and worried what I would have to do to take down another Master Scrivener.

  Concern over my aches and pains and Marin’s true identity quieted when I rolled onto my side to see Brent awake, lying in the jeans and North Face T-shirt the Trivial had left the night before. His hands were behind his head, elongating the muscles of his abdomen. The bed was large enough to fit ten of me, it seemed. Even so, his bare feet dangled off the end. Seeing him reminded me just how big a man he was, when hours earlier, when he had been bleeding to death, he’d felt small, feeble.

  For a second, I imagined that we were back in Québec two years ago, and I had simply awoken from a nightmare to find him at my side, ready for a day of coffee, desserts, and maybe a rebellion.

  “Good morning,” he said in a dry tone that jolted me from my daydream. “Sleep well?”

  I blinked to see him clearly. This wasn’t how I imagined we’d reunite. In fact, it was the opposite, and for that reason, my heart began to swell with disappointment.

  He kept his face turned toward the ceiling. “Two days ago, along came a kid named Percy, Marin’s little spy. She had proof—a cell phone video—that Errol was still using the Phlegethon. He’d revived Dudley. So Marin sent an army of Eidolons to put a quick end to Errol and everything around him.”

  His tone revealed his rage and anguish.

  My pulse thudded against my chest.

  “You being here…you speaking on Marin’s behalf was a setup,” he continued. “I knew you were in trouble. Stone”—he released a tense growl—“begged me to protect you. Of course, he didn’t have to. I had to break our ban and come and find you. I stayed under Marin’s thumb to protect you, but Marin’s latest lies made me realize I have to be with you to truly keep you safe. Plus, I’m a rebel. It’s what I do. What I am.”