Smitten With Death

by Sharon Saracino

  “Hey.” Kane dropped his hands to my shoulders and pulled me around in front of him so that we were face to face. “If I could have gotten the kid over to the other side myself, I would have never even involved you in this. Where I’m going and what I may have to do to get him back is not something I ever wanted you to see.”

  “Why?”

  “Why?” He gazed off somewhere over my head, and his jaw clenched tightly enough to snap teeth. “Because there’s a good chance there will be a fight. And if there’s a fight, I’ll have to shift.”

  “Yeah, so?” He continued to stare off into space, his green eyes glowing with something I couldn’t quite decipher.

  “Yeah so, I would rather not have you…see me like that,” he muttered. I felt my eyebrows lift into my hairline. Impossible as it was to believe, it appeared the Grim Reaper was a little self-conscious. Did he honestly think seeing his animal form would somehow diminish my opinion of him? Judging by the expression on his face, that was exactly what he thought. Clearly, he had short-term memory issues.

  “Morgan?” I laid my hands on his bulging biceps and curled my nails into his flesh until he deigned to meet my gaze. “I already saw you, remember? The first time we met.”

  Lost, frozen, and near death, I owed my life to that big, black Hellhound. Sure, I’d initially thought he was a wolf with all those big, pointy teeth looking like they meant business, but instead of tearing my throat out he’d nudged my cheek and licked my face with his warm, rough tongue, and when I woke up, I was safe in the Grim Reaper’s cabin.

  “Well, you were pretty much indisposed at the time, so it hardly counts,” he grumbled glancing away again.

  “Indisposed, incontinent, and incapable of saving myself. If you hadn’t shifted to track me, I would be a popsicle, a snow-cone in the woods, a—”

  “Okay, I get the point. You would have frozen to death.”

  “Actually you missed the point entirely. No big surprise. It’s an inescapable genetic predisposition of the Y-chromosome. The Hellhound is part of who you are, just as the Carbohydrate Whore is part of who I am. And while that’s a line I could have never imagined incorporating into a conversation—ever—the point is, I don’t have a problem with it. If anyone in this scenario has the right to be self-conscious, I vote for the incontinent woman with the pee-soaked panties.” He’d blown off my embarrassment at the time by explaining it was a body’s natural reaction to hypothermia, and it was—I Googled it after the fact just to be sure—still, a girl does hope to make a slightly better first impression.

  “You say that now, but you haven’t actually seen it. You’d feel differently if you did.”

  “Who was she?”

  His head whipped around, and his gaze locked on me again as his brows took a trip northward.

  “Who was who?”

  “The woman who couldn’t handle what you were?”

  “You have no idea what you’re talking about,” he muttered with a frown. “And anyway, my shifting isn’t the only reason I’d rather you wait here.”

  “Yeah, I think I do. But the bottom line is, whoever she was, I’m not her. Honestly, I’d have thought you’d have figured that out by now. For better or worse, I’m not your average run of the mill.”

  His chest expanded—yeah, I didn’t think it was possible for it to get any broader, either—as he sucked in a deep breath and blew it out slowly. Rubbing his hands briskly up and down my arms, he gazed down at me with a half-smile curling his well-defined, very masculine lips.

  “You really are a rather remarkable woman, you know that?” Oh. My. God. He was looking at me the way I look at chocolate.

  If you’ve ever seen me look at chocolate, you’ll understand how incredibly significant that is.

  My lungs suddenly felt too small to take in sufficient air.

  “Preaching to the choir, Reaper,” I quipped finally, while a flock of butterflies frantically beat their wings in my throat leaving me breathless. “So are we in this together or do I go home and take up origami?”

  “We’re in it together,” he said after a slight hesitation, and I got the oddest sensation. It could have been caused by the fact I suspected he wasn’t talking about the rescue of Buddy the Weasel anymore. Sadly, it was more likely caused by the consumption of one too many cups of coffee before crossing over. I tore my gaze away from Morgan Kane’s unnerving stare, and I regarded the Timekeeper who’d been quietly knitting away while observing the entire exchange.

  “Do you have a bathroom I could use, by any chance?”

  What? It happens.

  “Really, Logan?” Kane chuckled. “You couldn’t have gone before we left the house?”

  “I know, right?” Granny-Apple-Head wheezed back in her raspy voice. “Top of the steps, first door on the left.”

  Hey, what can I say? Aside from the central nervous system stimulating awesomeness of caffeine, coffee also has an annoying little diuretic side effect. Granted, someone who has reached my level of consumption and maintained it for a lengthy period of time should have developed a tolerance by now, but coupled with a bladder the size of a lima bean, let’s just say it’s sometimes a challenge.

  “Well, I’m assuming there won’t be a whole lot of rest stops at which to take a potty break on our upcoming expedition, so I figured I better go now, okay?”

  I spun on my heel and yanked open the screen door. I hadn’t been in the house before. There was a narrow hallway in front of me leading to the back of the house and a small parlor on my right. It was crammed with more crap than the clearance bin at the dollar store. On every square inch of wall space, and resting on every conceivable surface, was a clock. Big clocks, small clocks, clocks of all styles, shapes, and sizes, tick-tocking in unison at a decibel level that made me feel like I was trapped inside a time bomb. Shoved in between the clocks, in any minute sliver of available space, were balls of yarn in every color and texture imaginable. Well, it was the Timekeeper’s house after all, but I couldn’t help thinking maybe she’d gone a tad overboard. Shaking my head, I stomped up the stairs, pausing briefly at the top to drag in some air. It really sucks that when I exercise the only thing I seem to lose is my ability to breathe.

  The bathroom was a surprise.

  Okay, the fact there was a bathroom in the afterlife at all was a surprise, but I figured that was so obvious I didn’t need to remark on it.

  It kind of reminded me of the one at my Grandma’s house when I was a kid. The reek of floral-scented soap was strong enough to curl my nose hairs. The cramped room sported an old-fashioned pedestal sink, a toilet with an overhead pull-chain tank, and a white cast iron claw foot tub, all surrounded with the blinding black and pink tile combination that had been popular somewhere around 1949. I had a sudden, and unwelcome, vision of Mabel the Timekeeper climbing naked into the bath and wondered if there was a bottle of bleach around anywhere to scrub the backs of my eyelids. I was thrilled, however, to discover Granny-Apple-Head apparently had come into a stash of my favorite toilet paper. The kind that was soft and quilted and never, ever had the poor taste to stick to my bottom no matter what it was called upon to absorb. After taking care of business and adjusting my leathers back into place, I reached up and yanked the chain. The loud, screeching sound which accompanied the whirlpool of water swirling down the bowl made me hope, for the Timekeeper’s sake, there was a good plumber in the afterlife. Granny’s pipes weren’t sounding at all healthy. Then I realized the sound was coming from outside the door. The screeching was followed by a loud clunk as the door shuddered from the force of something being settled against it.

  What the hell?

  I quickly pumped a glob of alcohol hand sanitizer into my palm—Yeah, don’t ask me where she came by that either—as I am a strong believer that hand hygiene is the key to infection prevention. I rubbed my hands together briskly, yanked open the door, and found myself staring at the back of a tall piece of furniture which blocked my exit.

  “Kane?” I rap
ped my knuckles on the wood. I received no response save a low rumble of laughter from the hallway on the other side of the obstacle. Undeterred, I pounded harder. “Kane, you feaky snucker! Move this hulking behemoth right this second. You said we were in this together!”

  “We are in this together, Logan. Together includes me sending Buddy to you as soon as I get him free, and you getting him back to the other side. Together does not include me risking your neck to do it.”

  “You know what? This strategic redirection of the truth thing you’ve got going on is really getting on my last nerve. I knew what the risks were when I said I’d help. And if it all goes to hell in a hand-basket, well, at least I’ll have died for a noble cause, right? Besides, I went shopping for this. With Denise. I bought leather. That should count for something, Kane. Now move this damn thing and let me out!”

  “C’mon, Logan, we both know it’s a better bet you’ll die by falling up a flight of stairs and choking on a piece of chocolate. I’ve decided it’s too dangerous to take you along, so be a good girl, get the kid home, and behave until I get back. Trust me. The investment in the leather was not wasted. If you play your cards right, I might even, you know, take you out on a date or something after this is all over and done with.”

  “You’ve decided? Well, you know what, Kane? Grim Reaper or not, you aren’t the boss of me, so just cut the—Wait a minute. Did you say date?” A warm flush of anticipation replaced the hot flush of thoroughly pissed, and suffused me from head to toe. It could have been because I was swathed in leather in a small, confined room with a pathetic lack of ventilation, considering its primary function. But I didn’t think that was the reason. Morgan Kane wanted to take me on a date? My eyes widened, my toes curled. I pressed my thighs together and squirmed.

  “Well, dinner plans could be rather difficult to coordinate if you’re chained to a boulder in Cerberus’ dungeon, don’t you think?” I huffed.

  “He doesn’t have an actual dungeon, and I can handle him. By the way, if it will make you feel any better, my cousin isn’t the Cerberus. The real Cerberus was our great-great grandfather many times removed. Cerberus is actually my cousin’s middle name. He just uses it because he has an inflated sense of his own importance. His real name is Harvey.”

  “Seriously? Like the big invisible rabbit in the 1950s movie classic of the same name?”

  “Yep.”

  “Well, maybe you’ve forgotten, but I’ve already met him, and he was anything but cuddly. He seemed pretty damn threatening to me, regardless of his actual name. Please let me out. I…don’t want anything to happen to you, either.”

  He was quiet for so long I was afraid he’d left.

  “Reaper?”

  “Just watch out for Buddy, and take care of yourself, Logan. I’ll see you when I get back.”

  As his heavy footsteps slowly descended the stairs and faded away, I ground my teeth, and fought the urge to scream. I mean, I would have, but fortunately, I realized in the nick of time that I was trapped in a small, closed space with questionable acoustics and doing so would probably hurt me far more than anyone else. I had to get out of here. Kane had dangled the date carrot. I wanted that date. In fact, I was beginning to think maybe I wanted a whole lot more. As long as he continued to steer clear of plaid polyester golf pants and black cashmere socks, anyway. It was time to dance like no one was watching. Of course, I’d tried that once and someone was watching, thought I was having a seizure, and called an ambulance. Wound up in the hospital under observation for two whole days. It was not pretty.

  Slamming the commode lid closed, I dropped my leather clad butt on it and looked around. Sink, tub, toilet…sink, tub, toilet, big freaking armoire blocking the door…sink, tub, toilet, big freaking armoire…window. Ha! You have to get up pretty early in the morning to pull one over on Max Logan.

  Okay, so maybe you didn’t have to get up really early, just sometime before noon, and definitely before I’ve had my coffee.

  But I digress. I jumped to my feet, hitched up my sassy pants, and gripped the sill. I huffed and I puffed for all I was worth, but the damn thing didn’t budge. Belatedly, it occurred to me that unlocking it might facilitate the entire process. Unsurprisingly, it did. In case I neglected to mention it earlier, in the afterlife absolutely everything was a nondescript shade of gray. People, houses, animals, plants…there was not a single drop of color to be seen anywhere. Well, except for outsiders like Kane and myself who didn’t actually belong here, and the occasional unfortunate D.I.E.s (Death in Error). D.I.E.s managed to retain a faint washed out color hue distinguishing them as souls requiring retrieval. By yours truly. Thankfully, in my admittedly limited supernatural experience, they’d been few and far between. Just between us, I had my fingers crossed that particular trend continued indefinitely.

  With a decidedly unladylike grunt, I pushed the sash as high as it would go and then stuck my head out to survey the swirling gray landscape. Just my luck there was neither a downspout nor a rose trellis conveniently propped against the house the way there is in every single movie requiring exit via a second story window. My only hope appeared to be a cluster of fluffy shrubbery positioned just below the window that might break the worst of my fall…er, graceful descent. Damn it, I hate heights. Before I had time to overthink it and scare the crap out of myself, I climbed through the window, dangled from the sill by my fingertips for what seemed like an eternity, swallowed a scream, and let myself drop. The ground was a lot farther than it appeared. Naturally. Oh, and the bushes weren’t especially fluffy.

  Honestly, I wasn’t particularly surprised, either.

  I hit the ground feet first, just as I planned. I did not, however, anticipate the prompt and painful collapse of my knees from the impact, and I went down with a crash. Until the nausea passed, I lay there flat on my back panting. And not in a good way. Tentatively, I moved each separately articulating appendage, and prayed the bushes were the only things that had been broken. Thus reassured I was still in one piece, I sat up cautiously, plucking twigs and leaves from my hair, and concluded I’d live, although the landing was definitely going to leave a mark. Or ten. I climbed stiffly to my feet, congratulating myself on the decision to wear my awesome leather attire, which had protected me from the worst of the herbaceous landscaping. That’s me, discovering my superhero abilities, one injury at a time.

  And you thought the leather was all about the ass, didn’t you?

  I limped around to the front of the house. Granny-Apple-Head was still there knitting her fingers to the bone while rocking out to her own demented drummer, but Kane was nowhere in sight. Well, wasn’t that inconvenient?

  Chapter 14

  “I told him it was a stupid idea,” Granny grumbled loudly before I’d even cleared the side of the porch. “I knew you’d be too stubborn to stay put, and now I can’t even get into my own bathroom.”

  “Maybe I could help you move the dresser before I go?” I proposed half-heartedly. Frankly, I doubted even the two of us combined had a snowball’s chance in hell of budging the thing even an inch or two, but as a woman with a coffee addiction who’d been short-changed in the bladder department, I couldn’t help but sympathize with anyone facing a lack of facilities for any length of time.

  “Nah, I’ll make do with the powder room downstairs until Kane gets back.” She waved off my lackluster offer. “Assuming he gets back.”

  “So which way did he go?” I asked, pointedly ignoring the cryptic remark she tagged on at the end.

  “Good heavens, Maxine! For a relatively intelligent woman, you ask some dumb questions. Which way do you think he went?”

  “Well, let’s see…” The plan, as I understood it, was for the Hellhound Grim Reaper to confront the Guardian of the Gates of Hell in order to rescue the Zombie King. “I’m going to go out on a limb and guess south?”

  I knew I was right when Granny-Apple-Head amped up her rocking and stomped her orthopedic shoe on the plank floor while launching into an impr
omptu version of “Highway to Hell.”

  Don’t even attempt the visual. Trust me.

  “Well, let’s just say you might want to lose that jacket where you’re going,” she chortled breathlessly, apparently finding heavy metal a bit too strenuous at her age.

  “Much as I am enjoying this amazing musical interlude…or not…sadly I’ve forgotten my handy dandy compass for the directionally challenged. Do you think maybe you could at least point me in the right direction?” I tried to appear casual, as though I had all the time in the world. The grinding sound issuing forth from my molars and the incessant tapping of my foot may have given me away, however.

  As we have already established, patience is not one of my virtues.

  Granny-Apple-Head choked to a halt just before the chorus, and heaved a deep sigh. She dropped her needles into her lap—yes, they continued to clack away.

  Need I reiterate how totally creepy that is?

  Then she narrowed her eyes in my direction.

  “Well, of course I could point you in the right direction, Maxine, but maybe you should just trip up the steps and have some cookies and gin and wait it out. Are you sure traipsing along after Kane is the best decision?”

  I thought about that for a moment. Clearly, the Grim Reaper had not intended for me to tag along. I mean, nothing says park your ass and wait here like barricading a girl in the bathroom. Still, I couldn’t help thinking it was a mistake for him to leave me behind. Surely, I could be of some help even if bitchy was the only real superpower I was sure I possessed.

  “We both know I’ve made worse. I realize Kane’s gotten some crazy idea in his head that seeing him shift is going to change my opinion of him, but I’ve already seen him and I’m still here, aren’t I? Besides, he dragged me into this so if something goes wrong, I am not responsible.” Of course, if everything went well, I intended to take full credit and attribute the outcome to my brilliant awesomeness.