Lost Reaper

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

I opened my eyes and gaped.

I stood beside a glistening puddle of my own blood, back in the service station; a blank space where my body once lay. Still dressed in the long white gown, the cracked linoleum floor cold beneath my bare feet, I ran my hands over the soft material of the dress. My heart pounded, the body housing it whole, unharmed. Blood pumped its way through veins grown sluggish from inaction and for a moment I couldn’t move as my muscles struggled to remember how to work.

I was alive, but for how much longer?

I spun around. The monster roamed inside the service station, somewhere. I tuned out the drumming of my pulse and listened.

At first all I could hear were gasps as my lungs sucked in air. I slowed my breathing, concentrating on making my body believe the oxygen supply would not be cut off at any moment. A door slammed in the staffroom and what focus I’d gained fled. I fell to my knees, fighting for breath, desperate to calm myself and ward off the blackness threatening to sweep me into oblivion.

Get up. I had to get up. I clambered to my feet. I had to get out of there before the man who’d murdered me got a chance to do it all over again. Even as the thought formed, the door to the staffroom opened.

I put one hand to my chest and shivered when my fingertips grazed something so cold it almost burned. A heavy necklace with a large centrepiece stretched across my collarbones. Grimm must have put it on me when he’d grabbed me around the neck.

My legs were stiff as I shuffled towards the sliding doors, my hands automatically searching for my keys in the pocket of the jeans I no longer wore. I’d never be able to outrun him on foot. Even if my legs were working properly, in this part of town I had nowhere to run to.

Before my world had been bathed in blood I’d been at the counter with the keys in my hand. They had to be on the floor near where I had died.

My movements became more fluid as I edged towards the counter. When I crept past the end of the aisle where the dead trucker had fallen I averted my gaze. I had only a fragile grip on reality; I did not want to test it.

The closer I got to the counter, the easier it became to breathe. I was going to make it.

The monster had no reason to know I’d been resurrected. I tiptoed the remaining few feet and scooped the keys up off the floor, careful not to let them jingle. I skirted the pool of my own blood and made for the doors.

The thing that had murdered me stepped out of an aisle in front of me, knife held loosely in his right hand.

I shuddered, caught by the blank expression on his mottled face.

He looked even more like a zombie now, nightmare brought to life.

The flesh on his cheeks had begun to split and dark red blood oozed out of the cracks. Blood covered the front of his jacket and had turned his jeans black. He held out his left hand, palm up. Fingers coated in blood, nails caked with it, his gesture all the more grotesque when he curled his fingers, gesturing for me to come to him.

I shook my head, backing away, eyes going to the knife he’d stabbed me with. His mouth curved into a smile, though the blank stare never changed. He lunged forward and I bolted down the aisle to my left, vaulting over the dead trucker. Something metal hit the shelf beside my head. He’d thrown the knife.

I hit the end of the aisle and immediately twisted into the next one along. This led straight towards the doors and I forced my legs to move even faster as I ran for my life. My long hair let me down. I was wrenched backward and screamed at the pain in my scalp as he threw me up against the magazine stand to the right of the doorway. His hands let go of my hair, only to latch around my neck.

I kicked and punched him, desperate to get away, but he ignored my efforts and squeezed my throat hard, so hard I choked and gagged as my lungs screamed for air.

Snap.

I came to, back in the Underworld, Grimm looming over me.

‘You’re no use to me dead.’

I started to shake, fists clenched, wanting to smack the sneer off his face. ‘What the hell did you think was going to happen? You sent me back without a weapon or anything. That thing is twice my size and obviously crazy. You want me to live, give me something to work with.’

‘You’re a reaper. You don’t need a weapon.’

I stared at him. ‘You mean… I could reap his soul?’

‘That is what reapers do.’

I couldn’t get my head around it. Everything was happening so fast. One minute I was dead, then alive, and then dead again. I needed to think it through, but no amount of time would make this experience seem sensible. I’d fallen into a nightmare where to escape I would have to reap the soul of the monster who’d murdered me and two others.

I took a deep breath. ‘What do I have to do?’

Grimm came forward and this time I didn’t flinch as his bony fingers hovered below my neck. ‘To draw out a soul you must place one hand here and the other on your necklace. You will feel heat as the soul responds to your touch.’

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.

Grimm stepped back. ‘There’ll be no more second chances.’

I glared at him, hating him for putting me through this, hating myself for wanting to live so badly I let him do it.

He came at me again, skeletal hands grabbing my neck. But this time I did not scream. Rage towards Grimm filled me, burning away the cold as I took the first breath of my new life.

I launched myself at the monster that had killed me twice.

He stood beside the overturned magazine stand, his back to me. I gripped the necklace in one hand and reached for him with the other. He was taller than me so I aimed high, latching on to the base of his neck.

The second I touched him the necklace started to pulse, giving off heat. Warmth bloomed below my hand and it increased as his soul responded to my call. He spun around, eyes wide, and slumped to his knees in front of me, mouth open in a silent scream. His back arched, like a man who’d received an electric shock, and his body shook violently. Dribble fell from his mouth and his eyes bulged as I pulled my hand away and drew the soul out of his body.

I wanted to stop; I really did. I came so close to breaking the connection, letting his soul slip from my fingers. It dangled in the air in front of me, an entrancing bubble of light, with a core the size of an orange, like a tiny sun. A thin ribbon of light stretched from the soul to the body, anchoring it in place.

I started to release my grip on the necklace but then a wave of intense pleasure hit me. Every nerve ending in my body feasted on the power of his soul, a drunken orgy of sensation. I laughed and skipped out of the way as his body crumbled to the floor. Then I reached out and cupped his soul in both hands, severing its connection with his body.

Pain lashed me, fire-tipped claws tearing into my flesh. I shrieked and collapsed to the floor, twisting and contorting as I sought to relieve the torment. But nothing helped. It was like being burned alive and flayed all at the same time. Then it stopped. Shudders racked my body and I curled into a foetal position until the tremors ceased.

I got to my knees with the killer’s soul still clutched in my hands. Its light grew dim, blackened around the edges, and my first instinct was to toss it away. But another part of me remembered the ecstasy that had overwhelmed me when I had ripped it out of his body, and my fingers tightened around it.

My legs shook as I got to my feet. I looked out the service station window. Grimm stood on the other side, the Underworld at his back.

‘Did I… did I do it wrong?’

‘That was a perfect extraction.’

‘But the pain? I thought I was going to die.’

‘The punishment for reaping a soul before its due date is severe, but killing you would serve no purpose.’

‘I don’t understand. Why would you punish me? You told me to do it.’

‘I said you could do it, not that you should. Now you have a total of two thousand souls to reap before I can release you from your contract.’

‘Two thousand souls?’ I shook my head. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Novice reapers are given a quota of one thousand souls to start with and the penalty for an unauthorised reaping is also one thousand.’

‘You never said anything about a soul quota or penalties.’

‘You never asked. But you did promise to honour your obligation as reaper. You have one week to find Ash for me. Fail and I’ll revoke your resurrection and offer the job to the next person to die. You can still fill your quota if you’re dead. Give me that soul. Any legitimate souls you reap can be stored in your necklace, until it is time for you to hand them over.’

Numb, unable to process how stupid I had been, I handed the soul through the window into the Underworld and watched as it drifted from my hand to Grimm’s. His face lit up with unseemly delight when he touched it, eyes rolling back in his head, body shuddering with pleasure. He started to moan and my stomach heaved. I fell to my knees and threw up on the floor.

Stomach empty, hollow, I wiped my mouth with the back of one hand, holding back tears when I spotted my keys among the wreckage of the magazine stand. I scooped them up and pulled myself to my feet. I stumbled out of the service station, unlocked my car and slid inside.

I cried; my whole body shaking as emotion after emotion rocked me. Disgust for the pleasure Grimm had evidently experienced when he’d taken the soul from me, shame because my body ached to feel it again. I flushed, trembling, a low moan escaping my lips. Would it be the same if I tasted another f*******n soul? Oh God, how could I even think of doing it again?

The roar of a truck, speeding past on the highway, shook my Corolla and broke me out of my misery. I couldn’t stay here. Sooner or later another customer would pull into the service station and I did not want to be there when they did. I couldn’t explain to myself what had happened; trying to make the police understand would be hopeless.

I put the key in the ignition, started the car and then headed for home, desperately wanting to be in familiar surrounds. I needed a hot shower to wash away the filth attached to every particle of my body. Then I wanted to crawl into bed, hug my pillow, and cry myself to sleep.

As I drove, one hand crept up to my neck, touching the necklace Grimm had placed there. It weighed heavily on my throat, rising and falling with every breath I took. My breathing sped up and I gripped the steering wheel, hands shaking.

I pulled over two blocks from home and put both hands around the chain, wrenching it downward, the links digging into my flesh. My fingers searched for a clasp, but couldn’t find one. The chain encircled my neck so closely I had no hope of getting it off over my head and the links were too strong for me to break.

I snarled and let go. I’d get rid of it as soon as I could find a pair of side-cutters. Logan would have some in the toolbox he carried in the back of his Holden. I’d call him as soon as I got home. He’d know what to do.

Thinking about Logan, the way his mouth curled when he smiled and the mesmerising dimples in both cheeks, lightened my heart. While I wasn’t ready to dance for joy, a tiny kernel of optimism started to burn in my belly.

There had to be a way to break Grimm’s control, and I would find it. I couldn’t trust him. He would do whatever it took to get what he wanted. I had to be as ruthless. I would find this Ash and work as a reaper for now, even if the thought of taking another soul made me nauseous. I didn’t have the luxury of being squeamish, not if I wanted to live.

But I would never stop looking for a way to be free.