Unreap My Heart (The Reaper Series) (2 page)

Balthazar didn’t like it one bit. On the day of his homecoming, he was standing at the wall trying to figure out answers to way too many questions instead of hacking his way to D.

Seeing no way around the situation, Balthazar set aside his siege plans, determined to get to the bottom of this mess. If he challenged D for his seat, he’d do it when it didn’t seem so damn easy. He pulled his scythe off the walkway and jumped off the wall. He landed on light feet and made his way to the main building at the center of the compound. Its two-story brick was just an illusion, like many things in the Crossroads. Inside, a whole other dimension existed, easy to get lost in if you didn’t know how to navigate the halls. D had designed the main building like a labyrinth to keep intruders confused. The bastard.

At the entrance, Balthazar froze. The souls of the unborn quivered in the hallway. Usually the whisps had tasks that kept them in constant motion. Right now, they just floated in the hall, shaking. Their whimpering grated in his ears. He picked up the closest whisp and stared it down until it stopped and stared back.

“What’s going on here?”

Mistake. The question rattled the whisp even worse. Instead of just whimpering, it wailed. Balthazar rolled his eyes to the ceiling and flicked the thing away. It bounced off a wall, and when the whisp landed, it shook its head dazedly before it joined the chorus of whimpers again.

Unable to stand their pathetic cries, Balthazar shoved his way through the whisps. The ones that didn’t get out of the way fast enough he trampled beneath his boots.

At the end of the first hallway, he paused to get his bearings. The hall branched out into eight corridors. As a security precaution, D changed the path to his office daily. As if the guy hadn’t been busy enough. Balthazar lifted his free hand to his lips and blew on his palm. Smoke from his breath pointed him in the right direction. He took the seventh path to the left.

“Balty, that you?” someone with a thick Texan accent asked from behind him.

Balthazar winced at the affectation. He turned on his heel and faced the Reaper who was clad in jeans, cowboy boots, a button down shirt, and a ten gallon hat. “How many times do I have to tell you to stop calling me that, Tex? I’d hug you, but I’m not feeling it.”

The Reaper of Texas stared at him like he couldn’t believe he stood there. His next question pretty much confirmed it. “How’d you get in here?”

“Oh come on, Travis. Like it’s that hard.”

“But we’re on lockdown. No one gets in or out.”

He snorted. “Bullshit.”

Lockdown—a precaution D had put up against something happening to him—kept Reapers outside the Crossroads safe from any danger inside. It also kept anything stupid enough to attack D trapped until the Reapers left in the Crossroads handled the situation. If anything, the lockdown had come too early because Balthazar hadn’t done anything yet.

“Doesn’t this look like a lockdown to you?” Travis gestured toward the space above his head.

“I actually don’t know what a lockdown looks like. Do you?”

“I can’t leave the Crossroads, nor can the other Reapers, so yeah, it’s a lockdown.”

“I got in.”

“That’s the billion soul question, now isn’t it?”

Balthazar pointed at the skull on his scythe. “Keeper’s Key.”

Travis’s eyebrows disappeared into his hat. “Thought that was a myth.”

“Hiding in the Nethers all this time.”

“Huh. Well, will you look at that.”

“Don’t sound so excited.”

Travis stuffed his hands into the front pockets of his jeans and shrugged. “As much as I want to catch up with you, I have other things to worry about. We’re not up to snuff right now. If you’re not going to help, come back another day, Balty.”

He disappeared.

Balthazar paid no attention to the urge to follow the Reaper of Texas to wherever he decided to go and beat the crap out of him. There’d be time for that later. First, he had to find out what the hell had happened at the Crossroads. He turned back around and continued toward D’s office.

With every corner he rounded, the halls got darker and darker. He fished out a Zippo from the side pocket of his overcoat. He flicked the lid and used his thumbnail to light it. The flame danced before it settled into a steady burn. Balthazar followed the darkness until he reached D’s doors and realized the shadows undulated like waves around him. D’s cloak was leaking out of his office. Balthazar let go of the lighter, and it floated beside his head. He reached out and a section of the cloak hissed at him.

“Hey!” Balthazar barked. The cloak lived and acted like a guard dog. If he didn’t establish his dominance over it, the bite would hurt more than necessary. He pushed out some of his aura like his own shadow stretched by the sun until it touched the cloak. It whined like a hurt puppy and pulled back. Balthazar reached out again and instead of being attacked, the cloak actually clung to his hand like it asked for a rub behind the ears. He smiled at the submission of the thing.

“Open the doors,” he said in a soft, deadly voice. “Let me in.”

The robe receded into the office. The natural light of the hallway returned, casting the polar bear skin rug and zebra skin upholstered couch in bright white. Balthazar squinted, but not from D’s ugly taste in furniture. The couch and rug would be the first to go when he took his rightful place as the new Death.

All in good time.
He grinned at the truth of his thought. Yes. He’d get his chance to change things as soon as he settled this nonsense with the lockdown.

The doors opened inward with a loud creak, like the hinges hadn’t been oiled in years. Feeling good about himself, Balthazar walked into D’s office then stopped in shock.

“Son of a b—”

Chapter 2

FYI

A
RIANNE
S
AT
A
ND
T
RACED
the letters carved on the headstone. The marble played between cold and warm. Blades of grass tickled her calves.

“It’s weird, really,” Arianne said. “I wish I’d gone to talk to you sooner.” She paused. “I wish things had turned out differently. Maybe it’s my fault.”

A breeze ruffled her hair, teasing strands out of the loose bun she’d twisted them into. She’d removed her wide-brimmed hat a while back and cradled it now on her lap.

“There are so many things I wish I hadn’t done,” she continued. “I think we all feel that way.” A deep sigh came from a sad place in her heart.

A brown thrasher burst into song.

“I visited Ben before you.” She chuckled. “I know, I know, I should have come to you first, but you’re a talker. He, at least, just listens. I’m still mad at him. He’s so selfish sometimes. But we’ll figure things out. He loved you so much. I wish I could find someone who’d love me like that.” Her shoulders dropped a degree. “I miss you both so much.” A sniff turned into a whimper. Arianne fished out a tissue from her dress pocket and blew her nose. “I know I promised not to cry.”

Arianne breathed in, tilting her head to receive a kiss from the sun she couldn’t see. “Niko asked me out last night,” she said. “I’m not sure what to say. Dad says we dated. Even if I can’t see him, I get the feeling he stares at me a lot. And the way he follows me everywhere…it freaks me out a little. I let him come to the house because he says he wants to help me.” Arianne played with the wadded ball of tissue in her hands. “It’s either talk to him or go to therapy. He’s sweet and he really does help.”

Blades of grass rubbed against each other in the breeze, creating a hushed
shhh
.

“I know.” Arianne nodded once. “I should give him a chance.”

Arianne gasped awake. What just happened? She’d been talking to Carrie’s grave. She couldn’t remember Niko. And she couldn’t see. Because her sister had died and Niko had refused to reap Arianne’s soul, Arianne made a deal with Death. For Niko’s humanity, she would lose her sight and her memory of him.

A dream?

Whoa. Totally unreal. Freaky to the tenth power.

She sat up in an unfamiliar bed made of sun-bleached animal bones. At least she thought they were animal bones. The alternative only added to the freak factor of the room. The cushion felt feathery soft beneath her and the white sheets looked harmless enough. She pushed back messy strands of her red hair and stared at her hands. Death’s melodic voice asking for her eyesight still rang in her ears. Since she could still clearly see, what could have happened?

Niko, the boy she loved, had a secret. Outside of high school he reaped souls as the Reaper of Georgia, and in order to save his life from Death’s clutches, Arianne had been ready to sacrifice everything for him. Now she sat on a bed with white sheets in a room with a blood red rug on the floor, a painting on the wall she recognized as
The Scream
by Edvard Munch, and a gilt frame mirror. No chairs. No tables. No closets.

She untangled her limbs from the sheets and swung her legs over the side of the bed. The second her feet hit the cold floor, she squeaked and hopped to the rug. Its rough fiber tickled the pads of her feet. She looked down and curled her toes, then she picked at the black robe she still wore, the one that Tomas had given her to wear after he’d pulled her soul out of her body so she could enter the Crossroads. She turned in a tight circle and saw the red thread that connected her soul to her body. It meant her heart still kept her alive. She breathed a sigh of relief, but her relief didn’t last long. If she could still see and she could still remember her feelings for Niko, where could he be?

Arianne scanned the walls for a door. The worry bubbling in her chest turned into a tight band of panic. She stepped off the warm rug, wincing at the coldness of the floor, and hurried to one wall. She ran her hand along it. No door. Then she stopped at the painting. Its screaming alien face stared back at her. The orange swirling sky reminded her of pulled taffy. Weird, but at the same time, comforting.

She turned on her heel and faced the mirror opposite the painting. Her eyes widened. She looked so pale in the room’s light—wherever it came from. No lamps or ceiling lights. She took several tentative steps forward until she reached her reflection and touched the cold glass, meeting her reflection’s fingertips. She looked thinner than she remembered. The beginnings of purple smudges stood out beneath her pale blue eyes. She touched her cheeks the way the alien in the painting did. She almost didn’t recognize herself. Something had gone wrong. What had happened after she closed her eyes to wait for Death to do his thing?

“Ari,” said a smooth older voice.

With a flood of relief rushing through her, Arianne turned to face Tomas, the Reaper of California—her guide into the Crossroads. He still wore the expensive three piece suit that, along with the salt and pepper color of his hair, made him look distinguished. Niko had told her once that Tomas raised him as a mentor would have, but Arianne had a feeling they meant more to each other than just that. That Niko thought of Tomas as a father figure. If he hadn’t loved Niko like a son, the older Reaper wouldn’t have bothered going through all the trouble of taking Arianne and her best friend, Ben, to the Crossroads so she could save him.

The thought of Ben brought an ache to Arianne’s chest. Since she’d had a Death Certificate out on her, Ben had sacrificed himself so she could live. She still hadn’t properly mourned his death. Too soon. From the serious expression on Tomas’s face now, breaking down would be so uncool. She pushed aside the pain until she had some time alone to process everything and gave all her attention to the Reaper of California.

“How’d you get in here? No doors,” she said. “Stick me in your freakiest room, why don’t you?”

Tomas scratched along the line of his eyebrow. “There’s a door. I’m just not showing it to you. I can’t risk having you roam around the Crossroads unprotected. Especially now. And what’s freaky about this room?”

“Duh!” Arianne turned in a small circle. Then she stopped, staring at her hands again. “Tomas, I feel…weird.” She could feel her heartbeat. Her lungs expanded with every inhalation. Strange. She followed the lines on her palms before making a fist. Her hands felt the same. Almost normal, but still weird.