The Reaper's Embrace Read online

  “You forced her silence.” I was getting a better sense of Xiangu’s position. She was not a mastermind alongside Marin. She was a puppet, another toy for him to use for his gain.

  Now, all that anger I felt was replaced with hopelessness and stomach-churning grief. From what Master Xiangu was showing me, everyone is corruptible, everyone can turn into a monster or be the puppet of one.

  My eyes welled with tears as I stared into the face of reality.

  “I…” Words were difficult to formulate as I sorted through the thoughts tearing through my head. “I was taught to believe that goodness always prevails. A part of me knows there are boogeymen. I just never believed that they would win like Marin had.” And he was still winning, since I bore his Deathmark.

  “Sometimes they do. Sometimes they don’t,” he said.

  “I want to be the vehicle for goodness, Master Xiangu.” I addressed her once more, even though she still wore Marin’s face. “I don’t want to hurt anyone else. And I don’t want to see others hurt anyone else like Marin hurt you. I just want to restore peace to Styx. I can’t do that if I’m dead. And if you won’t, there isn’t another Master Scrivener to help bring Styx back into balance.”

  His eyes never blinked, exactly as I remembered. I had to hand it to her, Xiangu pulled off Marin’s demeanor better than her other impersonations. “You came here for help. The gift of healing Deathmarks is not something that comes without a price.”

  “I didn’t expect you’d help me for free. I only hoped that you’d see that I want to help Styx. I want to help Scriveners. I want to help us make it a good place again.” Truth was, I didn’t know what my payment would be for Xiangu’s help. The worst that I could have imagined was that I’d have to give up another loved one to save myself, a test that I wouldn’t take on. But learning the gory details of Styx’s corruption was hardly the fallout I’d anticipated. Xiangu must have known that I wasn’t the kind of person who could bury such depravity.

  And therein stood my price—living out the remainder of my days knowing the lengths of wickedness. If I lived, would I tell Styx? Would I let that wickedness out? Or would I carry it with me, bearing the weight of it for years to come?

  “You’re backing away, Master Dormier. I cannot heal your Deathmark from so far.”

  Following one long, deep breath, I said, “Maybe I can’t save Styx. I’m just one Stygian. Maybe I’m not enough.” I left no time for Xiangu to transform into another person from my troubled past when I spun on my boot heels and made for the tunnel of massive hedges and pink flowers. I would face the fate that Brent would hand me. I would die with dignity. There was no other option.

  But I stopped a third of the way through the hedges when I heard the one word that turned my heart from fire into ice.

  “Babygirl?”

  No, no, no.

  Guilt erupted from a chasm deep inside me, one I knew and dreaded would surface on a day like today. I waited, my back to Xiangu. Turning around meant committing to the remainder of this test. I could still leave. I could escape the nightmare if my heart were strong enough to resist.

  “Babygirl, it’s you?” she said in her thick New Orleans drawl.

  Mama’s freckles. I wondered if Xiangu could replicate them, too. I always loved those freckles. They were our only visual similarity, since my biological parents had been killed in the Scrivener Purge, and she and Papa had fostered and then adopted me. We shared freckles because, as I had liked to believe, difference in skin color didn’t mean we couldn’t love each other like mother and daughter.

  “Please, honey,” Mama pled. “Don’t go.”

  Chapter Nine

  “All warfare is based on deception.”

  —Unknown

  I couldn’t walk away. No way. Sick as it was, I needed to see Mama again, and it didn’t matter that this was an impersonator. And if I had anymore clarity of mind, I would have run to Papa so that he, too, could’ve looked upon Mama one more time.

  But this was my test. Not Papa’s. If I left now, Mama’s facade would dissipate. We’d come back to find Xiangu.

  I would have to see Mama for the both of us.

  I had imagined ways in which I’d get to reconnect with Mama. Dreams and fantasies seemed the only means to make heads or tails of the harsh reality of death. Even working in the business, I couldn’t reconcile the pain and emptiness of loving someone and then watching him or her leave this world behind. Selfish, sure. But there’s nothing wrong with wanting those I love here with me.

  Mama had been taken from me too soon. I had been the one responsible for dragging her into Lethe to face her executioner. Had I been given one more day to tell her all the things that I loved the most, all the things I feared the most, and all the reasons why I was sorry, then I could close that door forever. Mama could move on. I could move on, too.

  After three long, deliberate breaths, I turned around to see the Stygian who had adopted and raised me from when I was a baby. Mama’s nut-brown skin glowed warmly in the soft morning light of the sun. Her hair was as it had always been, wrapped in a green headscarf. Lime earrings and a necklace of milky emerald stones adorned her ears and neck. While the other of Xiangu’s impersonations had worn her black robe, this illusion did not. Mama was clad in her favorite jade dress. In her violet eyes was a spark of contentment that she’d worn up until the second she departed this living world.

  And the connection that made us a special mother and daughter were those freckles. They covered her nose and cheeks, proudly on display.

  I hadn’t paid attention to my feet. They carried me close enough to Mama so that I could reach out and brush my fingertips over her cheeks. Her skin was warm like Eve’s had been. I touched her freckles, exactly as I had as a child. Mama mirrored my touch, feeling our similar markings.

  “You are most afraid to see me. Why?” Her voice brought back memories of happier, simpler times.

  This isn’t Mama, I reminded myself.

  “It’s my fault you’re gone,” I admitted.

  “Babygirl, I made a choice. You didn’t force me into it,” she said.

  I gritted my teeth to keep my emotions inside me. There was so much to say. Did I confess how the past two years without her were more difficult than I could’ve anticipated? Did I tell her that I needed help with pulling Papa out of his grief?

  This isn’t Mama, Ollie. It’s a trick.

  A trick!

  There was an obvious conflict—play along, or end the game. In the case of Nicholas and Marin, I didn’t see the point in the game. But for Eve, Gerard, and Mama’s impersonations, my sense of reality and what was real and wasn’t wavered. One second I believed, and another I didn’t.

  “I’m proud of you,” she said, running the backs of her fingers across my tear-soaked cheek. “You’ve done what all of us hoped for. I knew no one else could but you.”

  “Why are you saying these things to me?” I backed away.

  She stared, violet eyes shimmering in tears.

  “You’re not her. You’re trying to get me to prove my worth.” My throat tightened upon seeing Mama’s face shift from happiness to rejection. “I am worthy. I know that because I’m here to gain power and step into Marin’s place. All I want out of life is to help people, and ensure that Styx is a place run by good Stygians. That’s all I want. Can you help me with that? Will you?”

  Mama—I mean, Xiangu’s—pause was followed by her pivoting on her heels to walk away. She moved slowly, shuffling almost, to where the grass had been pressed down into a shape of a circle. I waited for her to turn back to me, but she didn’t. She didn’t sit either.

  “I had beautiful ideals once,” Xiangu said in her own voice even though she remained the image of my beloved mother. “I was like you. I wanted my world to be filled with happiness. Then…well, then I met Marin and I met a few others who were not necessarily wicked in the beginning. However, they had in them unpure desires. I saw those desires. I knew where they would take th
em.”

  My heart thudded against my chest as I listened to her speak freely. She paused long enough for me to summon a breath and said, “What did he do to you?”

  She clasped her hands together. Sadness slid into her eyes and turned-down mouth. She was stricken with a memory by the twinkle of tears in the crooks of her lids. “I would rather not speak of such things, Dormier. Wounds are not meant to be reopened.”

  At that, we grew quiet as two women do when the weight of their conversation dictates more about their suffering than what is said. I wanted to hug her as a show of solidarity. Xiangu did not seem the sort who accepted hugs. So I lingered, unsure of how to continue until a thought crossed my mind.

  “Do you regret the part you’ve played in Marin’s rise to power even if it was forced upon you?” I had to know. If not for her, for me.

  She set her jaw and waited before her lips parted to begin with her answer. “I regret it as much as you regret your part in Eve Cassidy’s death.”

  “That’s why you’re here by the Acheron then, so you can be isolated when you want to be?”

  She nodded.

  We stared for a long time, unsure how to proceed or what to say or if there was anything to say. We understood each other, even if we did not agree with each other’s decisions, even if our decisions were made from desperation.

  “The removal of a Deathmark is a process,” she said, still maintaining Mama’s form.

  “How long?”

  “Hours. Possibly days.”

  “Brent, my Grim Reaper, is on the other side of the mountain. Once he breaks from my binds, which will be soon because I’m running low on energy, there’s nothing he or I can do. He has to honor his job. Can you work faster?” I crossed the circle of grass toward Xiangu.

  “Go back to Wrightwick Manor and the Phlegethon if you seek instant results.”

  “There’s not enough of the river to bring me back. Please, Master. Please help me.” The Phlegethon, or the River of Fire, once could resurrect the dead until its waters had slowed to a mere trickle because Scriveners and Trivials had depleted its volume through overuse. Now, I’d be lucky if there was enough left to bring a dead bug back to life.

  Mama glanced over her shoulder at me. “Am I truly your only alternative?”

  “Yes.” When I was close enough to touch her again, I stopped. “You’re the only who can save me. Please.”

  She sighed hard. “You must promise that you do only good from here on out.”

  “Yes,” I cried.

  “You must promise you will not become corrupted by power and greed.”

  “Yes, yes, please.” I couldn’t breathe. Was she telling me that she would help?

  “You must promise that you will turn this second chance at life into helping others. Do this because I could not do it myself.”

  “Anything. I’ll do it. I promise. I’ll make Styx a better place. I’ll do it in your name, Master.”

  One eyebrow rose as she raked me from head to toe with her gaze. “You mean to tell me you will make ensure my name stays clean once Marin’s story is out?”

  I gave her a confident nod. “You have my word as a fellow Master Scrivener.”

  She gave my arm bearing the Deathmark an inquisitive glance. “Good. Deathmark healing requires absolute trust between individuals.”

  “But what about Brent?” My voice was tense, something I could not mask.

  Mama’s eyes turned green—the same color I saw every time I looked into a mirror. As the smokescreen began to peel away, one layer at time starting first with her eyes, then her freckles, and so forth, I felt anxiety grow tighter in my chest.

  Xiangu was transitioning into another person I knew well, someone I had tried to run from for years, and someone I had only recently began to accept.

  In seconds, I stared at Olivia Dormier. Green eyes. Freckles. Dreadlocks. Black tank top and torn jeans. The only difference between us that was that my doppelgänger lacked the Deathmark on my right arm. This Olivia had what I needed.

  Staring at my reflection, something in me recoiled. Everyone she had shown to me had been someone I had affected, someone who had died. Was Xiangu prophetic? Had she gazed into the future to see something I dared not?

  “Healing takes time,” she said to me in my French-Canadian accent. “Brent Hume may find you before the process is complete. He may not. That is not for you or me to control.”

  “What do I need to do to get this process started?”

  “There is nothing that you can do.”

  Perhaps I wasn’t asking the right question. “What do you need to do to get this process started?”

  Xiangu lingered still and silent as we faced off, staring as two enemy kids might on a playground. Two of us were plotting the game’s rules. I had more to lose, which meant that my eyes would not leave my doppelganger until she showed me a sign.

  Being stubborn has its benefits. I have lived this long due to my belligerence. Some would say that this quality is something to be cherished. Others would argue that nothing is more unbecoming than obstinacy.

  Right now, it was my super power. I would own it.

  Xiangu’s gaze intensified with the slightest taper in those green eyes. I mimicked her to say that I was ready for whatever comes.

  “Remove your jacket,” she demanded like some well-rehearsed dominatrix.

  I did without comment. The leather jacket landed at my feet. My tank top left my Deathmark exposed. With the speed of a snake’s strike, her left hand cross-latched onto my arm, covering the skull.

  At first, I felt nothing except for her nails cutting my flesh. Xiangu didn’t speak, didn’t blink, and she didn’t grow red from heat like Master Scriveners are wont to do. If something was happening that involved the removal of my Deathmark, I didn’t sense it.

  And I was sure I would.

  When Marin had burned the mark into my arm with only his mind, I felt every line, every cut. His craftiness had been quick. But that didn’t by any means diminish the agony or the awful memory of his dying assault carving its way into my flesh.

  For this reason, I expected the removal of the Deathmark to be as agonizing. Nothing about this journey had been simple. Nothing. If I expected anything to be, I was a fool.

  So I waited. Xiangu’s face never wavered or showed signs of life. Air didn’t even appear to be moving in and out of her lungs. She was working on something, that I could be sure of. With her hand covering the skull, I couldn’t even tell if the mark was fading.

  “Will I feel anything?” I said after minutes of this awkward face-to-face stance with myself. I didn’t expect Xiangu to reply, so I wasn’t disappointed when she continued our silence, neither breathing nor speaking or breaking her stare.

  I would have continued this interaction all day if it meant healing my Deathmark. Standing in the middle of a path of lush grass with a canopy of greenery and flowers peppering the backdrop, lingering here would have been an easy feat. That sentiment changed when I felt a rod of electricity start in the center of the Deathmark and then drive like fire toward my shoulder. The shock of it brought me to my knees. I let out a raw, feral screech.

  Kneeling in the grass, bracing on my other hand to keep my shoulders upright, I tried to pull away from Xiangu, not because I wanted her to stop, but out of instinct. Her grip tightened. Those eyes that had been green, exactly like mine, turned milky white. She remained as my image, only with the eerie vacant stare, one entirely opposite of Marin’s black-as-night eyes.

  I had to remind myself that this was supposed to happen, even though I didn’t know how the removal of a Deathmark would go. I had to keep my mind steady and my wits strong.

  But the agony.

  I forced myself to stand. I had to.

  With my knees locked, I found myself eye-level with Xiangu again. The pain from the fire bolt had eased a little. Although my breaths were shallow, I felt like I had passed this test.

  Xiangu had said this was a process. S
he did not let me down.

  Another shockwave ripped through me. This one outdid its predecessor.

  I was back to my knees, using my other arm for balance, and my left twisted in Xiangu’s grasp. Again, I shrieked, following that with whimpers and tears. I could not formulate words. I could not beg her stop. I cried. The pain, by Hades, was like nothing I had ever endured.

  “Are you sure you can handle this, Scrivener?” Xiangu said in her own voice.

  I hadn’t the guts to look at her standing above me, twisting my arm at a grotesque angle. The ability to think, let alone move, was beyond comprehension. All that kept my brain in check was the surge of fire and voltage moving from Xiangu’s hand into my body.

  “Are you sure you want this, Scrivener?” she hissed again after failing to take my wracking sobs as an answer.

  “Yes!”

  She clasped harder to enhance the currents zigzagging agony through my veins. To this, I simply had one reaction, and that was to whimper like a dog. What else could I do?

  “Would you prefer I put out of your misery?” she added.

  “No,” I keened. “Please!”

  With that, the pain diminished. Xiangu’s hand fell away from my arm. I collapsed onto the grass in a fit of shivers and hot tears. I clutched my right arm, putting pressure on it to dull the burn. I did not, however, dare to look at Xiangu until I had pulled myself out of this sniveling mess. No matter her level of skill or if she was more powerful than Marin, I would face her with whatever pride I had left.

  “On your feet,” Xiangu said as I lay fetal on the grass. “You are a Master, not a servant.”

  Her foot met my shin. When I showed no effort to stand because the pain in my arm was far greater, she grabbed my dreadlocks and hoisted me to my feet.

  I stood hunched over, grunting and gasping, covered in slick sweat.

  “You will stay here until the mark is healed. Your companions will stay, too,” she said.

  “What about Brent?” I sniveled, terrified that in my struggle Brent’s binds had come undone.