The Reaper's Sacrifice Read online

  But memories, even those that were taken from me inside Lethe, don’t die so easily, do they?

  When I wasn’t on Brent’s psychological horror rides in my sleep, I dreamed about Québec—my home, my heritage, and where I belonged. I’d longed for Québec, not because it still felt like home and Kalispell was an unsuitable residence, but to resolve those dreams where I endlessly walked the streets I had known since childhood. I sought out my parents’ apartment so I might find Mama in her kitchen baking croissants and cookies. It would be so effortless to slip into her arms and lose all sense of time and regret in her hug. Would she forgive me? Would she still love me? Would she see that I had tried my best?

  Reentering Québec City awake and not in my dreams, I breathed in with relief. I was back where it all happened—where I met Brent, where Mama and Eve died, where I led the beginnings of a small Stygian revolution, and where I would one day finish it, if Fate willed it.

  Outside of my former apartment in St. Roch was our first stop in the homecoming tour because neither Chad, Papa, nor I knew how to get back into Lethe. Marin had delivered a clear message on Stygian television that the main entrance had been closed after the insurrection. I remembered the secret entrance Brent and I had taken, up to the point where we actually entered Lethe. But it was…well, I wasn’t about to climb down into a narrow tunnel with Chad’s head up my moon pie. Not on my life.

  The only option? Let Marin’s Watchmen come to us.

  Papa’s truck slowed to a stop in front of me. My motorbike sputtered out, and I swung the kickstand down. Chad had already dismounted, as he had done a hundred times before on our marathon ride from Montana to Québec. Marathon in that it took us roughly five days with Dudley’s needs and Papa and Chad’s bickering. Had I gone without their company, I would’ve ridden almost non-stop. But I never could have left Dudley and Papa behind. The Eidolon, on the other hand…

  “Nice place.” Sarcasm dripped from Chad’s attempt at a grin.

  He was right to be so mocking. My apartment building was now a scattered pile of clay bricks surrounded by a chain link fence with a Keep Out sign. Mama and Papa’s apartment building across the street was completely gone.

  “Not exactly how we left it,” Papa said.

  “Now what?” Chad asked.

  “Marin wanted me to come back to Lethe. But he didn’t say where to meet him to get in there. So where else should I meet him?”

  He scratched the back of his head, and dirty blond curls bounced around his ears. “How about the Château, cherie?”

  “You are either stupid or not paying attention.” Knocking on the famous hotel’s front door wasn’t going to get us inside Lethe. Besides… “Why doesn’t Marin bring his sorry ass up here and talk to me for once? I’m sick of him hiding behind his underground smokescreen. He wanted me to come back; he should’ve given me the goddamn key to his—”

  Chad’s exasperated grunt intruded on my rant.

  “What?”

  “Your mouth moves too much.” As I stood with said mouth agape, the jerk continued, “I’m baffled at how Hume dealt with you. ’Cuz I’m fixing to rip out your tongue.”

  “How do you feel about me burning off your nutsack?”

  His thin nostrils flared. “You couldn’t move fast enough.”

  “That’s what Baird thought.” Oh, yes, I said it. Nicholas Baird—the Reaper who’d gotten my Deathmark palm-printed on his cheek after he’d half-ferried Eve.

  “All right, all right,” Papa groaned. “Would you two stop?”

  Given that part of our tension stemmed from having spent five days on the road together, and the other part because, well, I hated the son-of-a-bitch, I wasn’t surprised when Chad’s face faded behind the fantasy of my foot hitting dead center of his twig and berries. But the litany of expletives and Chuck Norris footwork I wanted to unleash never came to fruition. Fortunately for him, something else caught my interest. I looked over his shoulder.

  “What?” Now it was his turn to ask.

  “We’ve got company.”

  Six Watchmen in their customary black suits approached, gold scythes fastened to their lapels and yellow eyes aglow with undeserved self-importance. Behind them sat their standard issue white minivan, which would be equipped to carry all of us, even my motorbike, to Death’s door.

  “Scrivener Dormier,” said the portly one in the middle, yellow eyes like tiny buttons suffocating in the middle of overly risen dough. “Welcome home.”

  I wasn’t sure how to respond, so I muttered, “Thanks?”

  His eyes darkened. “Head Reaper Marin is waiting to meet with you. Come with us.”

  The Watchmen were smart to bring a pair of handcuffs, but they wouldn’t need them. I would go into Lethe as a Stygian honoring her summons, not as a prisoner. When two Slim Jims advanced, ready to use the cuffs, I shook my head. “You won’t need those.”

  “Head Reaper insisted we bring you in this way,” Dough-man challenged.

  “It’s unnecessary.”

  “These are the rules that—”

  I held up my hands, which were cool and still. “Put those on me, and I’ll turn your face inside out and force Chad to use it as toilet paper.”

  The Watchman gave me a once-over. “Get in the back of the van then.”

  “His face would make great toilet paper, wouldn’t it?” I asked Papa and his new Eidolon friend.

  “Sure would indeed, Scrivie.” Chad’s words were chockfull with anticipation. This once I appreciated his company.

  “I’m sure we could make two Reapers out of him,” Papa said, his mouth barely moving.

  From my peripheral vision, I caught one of the Watchman’s shoulders bouncing from laughter. He then motioned to Chad and me. “Last time we saw those two together, they were mortal enemies. Now look at them. Practically friends. Do you like being her bitch, Chadwick?”

  I found myself with one hand on Chad’s chest and the other on the sniggering Watchman’s. I had a habit of jumping between Eidolons and their prey. One day it would get me killed.

  “Drop it,” I said to Chad. Oddly, that cooled him down, when the last time we’d faced off, I had shamed him before the world. He had been made a joke on Stygian television. That had to burn when he peed. I wouldn’t gloat that Chad had ridden bitch from Kalispell. That was better saved for a more opportune moment—like on Jerry Springer or WWE, where we could break chairs over each other’s heads to settle the score.

  “If you won’t wear handcuffs,” said the Watchman, “then we’ll bag you. That’s the rule.”

  He folded his swollen arms across his chest, crinkling lines into the sleeves of his suit jacket. He was as haughty as could be, far worse than I had ever seen in Death’s police, which was saying a lot. I had a niggling suspicion this one was the Head Watchman who’d replaced Garik—a Watchman-turned-rebel who’d died just before Mama had.

  I gave the Head Watchman a casual glance, eyeing the lump of flesh oozing from his shirt collar. “Fine. We’ll go in handcuffs, for Hades’ sake.”

  Chapter Five

  “Only one who devotes himself to a cause with his whole strength and soul can be a true master. For this reason, mastery demands all of a person.”

  —Albert Einstein

  In hiking boots, bug-splattered jeans, and a black leather motorcycle jacket, I was not dressed to meet the fancy-pants Head Reaper. A Watchman had offered me a pair of flip-flops so that I wouldn’t pad around Château Frontenac’s secret underbelly in muddy boots—more of a generosity for housekeeping than me. The subterranean caverns under the building were not some moldy basement with grimy floors and dead rats. Lethe was carefully decorated in gold trim, crystal chandeliers, and paisley carpet.

  Even with luxury at its finest in the portal to the Afterlife, Lethe was still not as comforting as the world-renowned Le Château Frontenac that humans adored.

  Set atop a hill overlooking Québec City, Le Château Frontenac was a building I had idealized when
I had been a whimsical little girl, innocence intact. Dressed as headstrong Belle from Beauty and the Beast, I had gazed from my bedroom window at the hotel, imaging stories about a lady waiting for adventure to knock on her castle door. I had thought that wearing my princess costumes would somehow whisk me away, like tulle and cheap satin would share my fantasy with dream catchers.

  But the Château, at least what resided beneath it, had revealed itself to be a nightmare where Stygians were sent to be unfairly judged and punished. It all happened underneath the hotel—out of the eyes of common Grim Reapers and visiting humans. A five-star hotel with honeymoon suites and little chocolates on the pillows, the Château was also the gateway to my personal hell. And Brent’s. I swallowed the lump in my throat at the thought of my love possibly being so close. Was there some way for us to reconnect now? Could I convince Marin to let me see him, just once more, even if Marin had to be present to ensure we wouldn’t run off or plan a revolt?

  The Watchman led me through a hallway lined with oil paintings of former Head Reapers, to a set of French doors with idols carved into the mahogany. I braced myself when he pushed down on the brass latch. Lamplight poured over me as the door creaked open. The smell of pine reminded me of Montana: quiet, safe, and hundreds of miles from here.

  “You may go inside,” said the Watchman.

  I took that to be a demand and not a request, so I walked just inside the door to scope out the lay of the land. On one wall was a floor-to-ceiling painting of Québec City at dusk. It seemed like if I squinted, I could’ve made out Mama and Papa’s old apartment. I felt compelled to draw onto the painting with a Sharpie, my childish eyes looking up at the hotel from the window of my long-ago home. Defacing private property would be the most benevolent of my criminal acts.

  “Welcome back to Lethe, Scrivener Dormier,” Head Reaper Marin said in a flat tenor.

  I spun with a hand to my chest. He startled me, but he didn’t scare me. Still, I had to fight to speak without a nervous warble in my voice. “Hi, yourself.”

  Marin wore the same black turtleneck and black blazer as always. I hadn’t forgotten his white-as-a-ghost-skin, which was smooth despite his old age. His thin shoulders curved over a wooden desk and a collection of tools laid out in precise lines around the dial of a mechanical watch. A light shined down from above him. Working with the precision of a neurosurgeon, his fingers were steady as he picked at the nearly microscopic gears.

  I pointed to the window painting. “I can see my old house from here.” Figured laughing was a good way to break the awkwardness.

  “That mural was painted by a Scrivener long ago. Lovely work,” he said.

  “Very nice.” Never in my whole life did I think I’d have a brief exchange about a piece of artwork with the Head of Death.

  Marin rolled a metal tool between the pads of his fingers. He remained fixed on the watch sparkling in the fluorescent light. “Give me your assistance. I require an extra set of hands. Yours are steady, are they not?”

  “They move with a mind of their own. Not good for delicate work.”

  His black eyes lifted from the gutted watch to meet mine, but unlike my green eyes, Marin’s had no pupil or iris, just inky black voids where blue or brown or yellow eyes should’ve been. If he wore sunglasses, he would’ve been a gentleman for it, because black eyes like his were a crime against anyone who was forced to stare into them, leaving you always wondering if he saw you or just the death he planned for you.

  “I’m not good with small things,” I said. “I tend to burn them.”

  “Only when you are angry. Are you angry now?”

  “Not really. Confused is more like it.”

  His absent gaze lingered for longer than was necessary, like he was considering my death but gave up on the idea because it was the easy route to ending this conversation.

  “What do you want me to do?” I continued.

  With his silver tweezers, he pointed at an infinitesimal disk on the watch. “Hold the dial. Keep your hand steady. The metals are fragile. They require a delicate touch.”

  Being alone and in the underground lair of the King of Death wasn’t heartening. Sitting next to him and participating in arts and crafts was downright asinine. His face was stone-cold, blank, foreboding. He’d make me get closer. Asinine or not, I began my measured approach.

  He flipped the tweezers around and set them on the table. The clank of the silver on the desk was earsplitting.

  I wiped my sweaty hands on my shirt and sighed. Across from him, next to his pedestal desk, was a chair that had been strategically placed for me. I didn’t wait for an offer before I took a seat and put my fingers on the table, its cold wood giving me goose bumps. The tweezers, moving of their own volition, zipped toward me and stopped short of my hands.

  I reared back, stalled in bewilderment and slight awe.

  Another deep breath and I collected the tool, still lukewarm from his touch.

  “Put them between your thumb and middle finger,” he instructed.

  I cupped my left wrist with my right hand and placed the tips of the tweezers around the dial. From here I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do except try not to crush the watch innards.

  “Tell me, Dormier, what exactly happened in Montana that sent you back here in such a hurry? Surely it wasn’t just my summons.” His eyes were on me, an arctic stare akin to a shark’s.

  I directed my attention back to the watch faster than a blink. My story had to remain clear. Long ahead of this meeting, I had decided to leave out as many names as I could. Chad, Leo, the rebel cells, spies, and even David’s mysterious Deathmark would fall by the wayside. Too many questions would surface if I mentioned them. But Papa’s safety was another matter altogether.

  “Trivials attacked Papa and me. It happened at the same time that we found your summons.”

  “What else did you find?” His screwdriver tapped the dial I was nearly crushing in my viselike grip. It took all of my concentration to ease off.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “In your shop, Deathmark Body Art, what did you see?”

  If he couldn’t hear my heartbeat, he probably felt it pounding against the table I leaned against. I let go of the dial and set the tweezers down. “I saw blood. Everywhere.”

  “The artwork on the wall?”

  “How…how do you know about that?”

  “I have eyes in all corners. What was this art?”

  “Well, with all due respect, if you have eyes, then you should know.” My recalcitrant, or better said, smart-ass disposition didn’t need to surface now, but it had.

  Marin’s response was exactly like his previous reactions—stoic indifference.

  Again I pumped my fingers, picked up the tweezers, and put them back on the dial. “It was a snake around a skull. I had nothing to do with it.”

  His black eyes stared down his nose at my unease. “It’s the work of Trivials. They have been a longtime problem. They have no principles and abuse other Stygians to improve upon their hollow existence. I have assigned the Eidolons to collect them and bring them to Lethe so that they may be dealt with. I have been in contact with Master Scrivener Dennison in California, the Trivials’ protector and master, to deal with this matter, but he has made a lofty request.”

  “Master Scrivener?” I’d assumed there might still be a few Master Scriveners left after the Purge—or perhaps others who’d evolved since Marin had ordered the Masters killed. But to hear Marin talk about one so openly was surprising, to say the least. If Dennison could control Trivials, that explained why he’d managed to keep himself safe from the Head Reaper.

  He laced his fingers together, careful not to touch the disemboweled watch and the collection of instruments in front of us. “Yes, Dennison is a Master Scrivener. A powerful one. He wants all Eidolons, especially Brent Hume, put on retrial for their roles in the Scrivener Purge, or else he will unleash more Trivials upon us. Since your fate is dependen
t on Eidolon Hume’s, you understand that Dennison’s demands are your burden as well.”

  The need to protect the Eidolon whom I loved and my own half-soul’s existence put me on high alert. The absence of part of my soul meant more to me than ever before, reminding me that as each minute passed, I was closer to my end without a resolution between Brent and me. Brent wasn’t untouchable. And since he wasn’t, neither was I.

  “Brent wasn’t responsible for the Purge,” I said with anger on my breath.

  “That is your belief, not Dennison’s. Turning Hume over to protect Styx is a simple choice from my perspective. My perspective is what really matters.”

  If anyone should pay for the execution of the Scriveners, it was Marin, not Brent. As Head Reaper, he’d ordered the Purge in his thirst to hold onto his position as master of Styx. Again, the word was, only a Master Scrivener and an Eidolon could kill him. Marin would never admit to any of this, however.

  I reset my focus and forced out, “What can I do to help?”

  “I’d like to keep Brent Hume’s skills in service of Styx,” he said. “So who else to advocate for Brent’s innocence but the most famous Scrivener of all?”

  My heart momentarily stopped beating for two reasons—I was being asked to serve as a diplomat, and Marin had inadvertently triggered the melody from my favorite Christmas song. This time, however, I was wise enough not to crack a joke.

  “You want me, a rebel with the red and black sticker on my Stygian ID, to speak on your behalf?” I didn’t believe this opportunity even after voicing it.

  “Master Scrivener Dennison only speaks with his kind, not Reapers. You are still paying your debts, Dormier, which makes you a prime candidate for this task.”

  “Master Scrivener Dennison,” was all I could bear to say. Marin’s proposal didn’t make sense, even if this opportunity would settle the score between us. Was this a trap? Why would he send me to meet a Master Scrivener? Putting two rebellious Master Scriveners together seemed foolhardy on his part. Then again, by following orders, I could save Brent and myself from assured doom, right now. The answer was simple. Marin knew it, too.