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Frowning, I stepped into the lobby to find a man standing in the middle of the room, looking down at the watch on his left wrist with a grim expression. He wore a pair of black slacks and a white button-down shirt with short sleeves. His dark hair was starting to recede, giving him a bald spot on the top of his head, and the clipboard he was holding rested on the slight paunch of his stomach. While I didn’t have any clue as to who he was, I could easily see that he wasn’t the threat I had feared. He looked like a census taker or some poor, middle-aged man stuck in a dead-end job selling kitchen knives door-to-door.
“Mr. Powell,” he said in a low, even voice as he looked up at me. His eyes paused on the gun in my hand, causing him to arch one eyebrow as his frown grew a little deeper. “I hope you appreciate that I was willing to wait for you while you had your brief encounter with the elf on the second floor. I don’t have time to waste like that. I’m on a very tight schedule.”
I opened my mouth to ask how he had possibly known what I was doing with Trixie and how he could know that she was an elf, but no noise came out as he continued talking.
“You might as well put the gun away. It won’t help you.”
“Who are you? How the hell did you get into my shop?” I swept around the counter and walked over to the front door to find that it was still locked. I lowered the gun, guessing that he might have sneaked in through the back door while I was upstairs with Trixie, but he had to have been watching the parlor from the back alley to get his chance, and I couldn’t recall seeing anyone in the alley as we ascended the stairs.
“I’m with the Grim Reapers’ Union, local number 23466, and I can get into any place I want, Mr. Powell, locked door or not.”
A snort of disbelief escaped me as some of the tension eased from my shoulders. “Grim reaper? You’ve got to be kidding me.” I had to admit there were a lot of things in this world that were hard to believe and a lot of things I struggled to understand, but I didn’t believe there was a single creature who controlled the life and death of every living thing. Let alone believe there was an actual union of reapers that saw to the demise of everyone on this planet.
“You’re not supposed to know about us, Mr. Powell. We work much better when we remain in the shadows, handling the death of a person when it is their time with no one looking at us. It’s just easier for everyone involved. Much less paperwork.”
“I would imagine so,” I said, still unable to lose the snideness in my voice. A grim reaper? He looked like an accountant or some corporate drudge trapped in middle management. “I thought the grim reaper was supposed to wear a black shroud and carry a scythe and maybe even an hourglass. You’re really destroying all of my beliefs here.”
“I would hate to do that,” he said with an irritated sigh, seeming to finally get tired of my sarcasm.
In the blink of an eye, dark clouds spread across the sky, blotting out the sun so that the earth was blanketed in a false night. The man I had been mocking was gone and an eight-foot-tall black-shrouded creature leaned over me until I was pressed against the wall. In one skeletal hand was a reaper’s scythe that seemed to gleam in some unholy light, while the rest of him was cloaked in thick shadow. On a silver chain around his waist was an hourglass with its sand constantly pouring toward oblivion. I tried to stare into the hood of the shroud to see the creature’s face, but I could see nothing beyond a pair of unblinking red eyes that radiated power. A deep sense of hopelessness pervaded the room until I was nearly drowning in it.
“Has this convinced you of my identity, Gage Powell, or do you need to accompany me on my next visit to reap a soul from this existence?” the creature asked in a deep, resounding voice that echoed throughout my whole frame and rattled my eardrums. Without a doubt, I was dealing with a creature infinitely more powerful than I could ever be. He could squash me like a bug with a mere wave of his bony hand and there was nothing I could do to stop it. And yet I was still holding my gun on him, clasped tightly in both trembling hands. I knew that a shot wouldn’t do a damn thing to stop him, but my brain wasn’t working in any kind of logical fashion. I was looking into the face of death and I just wanted him to back off and get the hell out of my shop.
“I’m convinced,” I replied, somehow managing not to stutter.
The shrouded creature, in the blink of an eye, turned back into the balding middle-aged man shaking his head at me. He sank onto the bench that lined the back wall, settling his clipboard on his right knee. Pulling a white handkerchief out of his pocket, he wiped some sweat from his brow.
At the same time, I slid down the wall as my shaking knees gave out on me. The heavy metal gun hit the ground with a solid thud, while I hung my head forward so that my chin rested against my chest. My breathing was heavy as well, while a fine trembling seemed to fill every fiber of my being.
“See? Isn’t this form much easier to deal with when it comes to handling business?” the grim reaper commented.
“Yes, but it’s just a little hard to believe at first blush,” I said, laughing, one part relief and one part hysteria. “I thought the idea of the grim reaper was just an old myth. I would never have guessed there were unions that handled death.”
“Someone has to manage the flow of souls from this world to the next. It’s a very important job.”
“Without a doubt, but how does one go about getting such a job? I have to admit that I’ve never seen a want ad for the position.”
For the first time since he’d appeared, the grim reaper actually gave a small smile. “Another time, perhaps. It’s something of a long story and I’m on a tight schedule as it is. In fact, I should have been out of here already, Mr. Powell.”
“Gage, please. I think after that scare, you can use my first name.”
“Thank you,” he said formally, with a nod of his head as he grew serious again. “Gage, you’ve seriously fucked up.”
“I was beginning to guess as much considering that you’re here. I would think that if you were after my soul, you would have reaped it already and moved on. No time for chitchat.”
“Exactly. This is about one of your recent clients.”
“I hope this isn’t more Russell Dalton shit. I really don’t think I can tolerate another word about that man,” I grumbled, resting my arms on my knees.
“Dalton. Dalton. Dalton,” the grim reaper muttered to himself as he flipped through several sheets of paper on his clipboard before he found what he was looking for. “No, it’s not his time just yet. Though it doesn’t look as if you’ve been much help with his case.”
“I’m not taking responsibility for his death whether it comes today or ten years from now. He dug his own grave.”
“And you threw the dirt in after him.”
“Whatever,” I said with a wave of one hand. “He got what he deserved. If this isn’t about Dalton, then which of my clients do you have a problem with?”
“It’s a young woman by the name of Tera Cynthia McClausen.”
It took me a moment to remember who he was talking about when I heard the entire name, but my stomach clenched when I suddenly focused on the first name. Tera. She had never given me her last name and I had never thought to ask. It would be on the paperwork she filled out, but I never looked that shit over.
My tattoo on Tera’s back had brought the grim reaper to my door, and I had a very good guess as to why he was there. The angel feather. It had done something to mess up the flow of souls. Whatever it was, the grim reaper was calling me out and this was one of the last guys on this planet I wanted to go a few rounds with. There really was no winning.
For now, the best plan was to play ignorant for as long as possible. “What’s the problem with Tera?”
“She was on my schedule to die and you’ve ripped her from my sheet!” he exclaimed, slapping his clipboard against his knee. “I can’t have screwups on my watch. This isn’t the kind of job where you can let souls slip through your fingers. When a person is slated to die, they have to die. Every soul must be accounted for.” As he spoke, he punched the clipboard with one slightly pudgy finger for emphasis.
“What are you talking about? Did I extend her life or something? What’s the big deal if she lives a few weeks or months longer? She seems like a good person, and the world wouldn’t be a particularly bad place if a good person lived a little longer.”
“It’s not a matter of good and bad people, I’m afraid. I also haven’t the time to go into a discussion of morals and the silly concept of right and wrong. It’s a matter of when their time is due. Tera’s time is up.”
“Fine. She has to die,” I said, throwing up my arms in frustration. She was a nice person, but I doubted that I would be able to sway the grim reaper on the matter of death. “How does that involve me? All I did was give her a tattoo before cancer finally took her life.”
“You know what you did.”
“’Fraid not. Please, enlighten me.”
“You made her immortal! I can’t reap her soul.”
My mouth hung open for several seconds and I swear my heart actually stopped in my chest. Immortal. I was up a serious shit creek with this one. There weren’t true immortals in this world. Vampires could be killed with a well-placed stake and the elves were simply a long-living race. Even the witches and the warlocks had found spells to extend their lives by a considerable amount, but everyone died. Tera was immortal? To hell with the cancer that I had been hoping to give her an edge on, I had fixed it so that even all-mighty death couldn’t touch her. Holy hell.
I was screwed. On the one hand, I had death haunting my tattoo parlor, angrily tapping his clipboard of names for the chopping block. On the other hand, if the warlocks and the witches got wind of this massive screwup, they would squeeze me for information on how I did it and then kill me. Unfortunately, I didn’t know which was worse.
Pushing to my feet, I kept one hand on the wall to steady myself, as my legs were reluctant to support me. “Okay. Okay. Let’s just discuss this slowly.”
“Discuss this slowly?” the reaper repeated incredulously. “There’s nothing to discuss. She’s immortal, Gage. In case you’ve forgotten the definition of that simple word, it means that She. Can’t. Die. You’re keeping me from doing my job!”
“I get it. She can’t die. This news is all a little unexpected.”
“Is it? You know what caused this.”
The angel feather. Yeah, I knew what had caused this. “I didn’t expect it to have this kind of effect on her. I’ve never used that ingredient before. Never thought to.”
“So you took a chance with some powerful magic without actually considering the consequences of your actions? What were you thinking?”
I pounded my fist against the wall before taking a few steps toward the balding man, still seated on the gleaming wooden bench. “I thought I would try to help her. It’s like I said, she’s a nice person. This world could do with a few nice people after all the scumbags that I run into on a regular basis. Helping someone isn’t a crime.”
“But making them immortal is a crime against nature, and you’re going to have to pay the price for it.”
“What are you talking about?” I demanded warily, halting in my steps toward the increasingly frightening figure.
“In three days, I need a soul. On my checklist, it’s Tera McClausen, but I’m more than willing to change that name to Gage Powell to suit my needs.”
“You can’t do that!”
“Really?”
“You can’t kill me to fill in for someone else. That just can’t be legal in your world.”
“And who are you going to report me to? Until a few minutes ago you didn’t even know I existed.”
I shoved both hands into my hair and tightened my fingers, wanting to pull my hair out in frustration and sheer desperation. This couldn’t be happening. The grim reaper was going to cut my life short because I fucked up by trying to do something nice for someone else. A low growl rumbled from my throat, my eyes scanning the tattoo parlor as if I was trying to find some way of escaping, but you couldn’t outrun death. I could tattoo myself using the same angel feather, but I had no desire to be immortal. I just didn’t want to die in three days. I was hoping to have a little more time. And even if I escaped, that didn’t mean the grim reaper couldn’t start going after other people in my life in an attempt to exact some revenge for screwing up his job.
“I wish it didn’t have to be this way.” The man sounded tired and genuinely sorry about the situation. His round shoulders slumped and he sagged a little on the bench where he sat. “After glancing over your paperwork, it looks like you’ve still got a lot that you need to accomplish in this world, but I will reap you if I have to.”
Dragging in a slow, cleansing breath, I unclenched my fingers and dropped my hands back down to my sides. There had to be a way out of this. I had gotten myself into some nasty scrapes in the past and had managed to ease my way out of the messes with a limited number of bruises, scars, and broken bones. I could still fix this.
“You said that you don’t need the soul for another three days,” I started. There was only one way to fix this and I could feel my stomach starting to knot. A bad taste was forming in the back of my throat.
“Yes, three days from today,” he confirmed.
“And you just need a soul.”
“Preferably Tera’s soul, but I will take yours in trade. Only yours.”
“I’m not going to kill some random person off the street just so you can meet your quota,” I snapped irritably. “What if I can make Tera mortal again?”
“Then you are in the clear.”
“And there’s no way to extend the time she has? Three days is so little time before she dies from cancer.”
The grim reaper heaved a heavy sigh, as if he had heard this argument far too many times in his long career of collecting souls from the living. Lines dug deep furrows in his face, signs that this job was weighing heavily on his own soul, assuming that the grim reaper was still permitted to keep his soul. “I’ll see what I can do, but at the very least I need her soul available to me three days from now. Extensions happen, but they are extremely rare. I’ll put in the appropriate paperwork for you.”
A light-headed giggle escaped me. My neck was no longer necessarily on the chopping block, though Tera’s was back on it. But in trade, I might have actually managed to extend her life longer than she originally had in a legal, happy, grim-reaper manner. It was the best I could ask for.
“Okay, you work your magic with death paper pushers and I’ll work on Tera. Hopefully, at the end of three days, everyone will be happy in some way,” I said, trying hard not to look too closely at what was currently left of my sanity. I didn’t think it was a good thing to spend the afternoon examining futures with the personification of death. It only led to panic and bargaining for things you didn’t necessarily think you could accomplish.
Tucking his clipboard under his arm, he pushed slowly to his feet again; some arthritis in the knees was probably beginning to slow him down. “You have a deal. I will see you again in three days.” And then he was simply gone.
I blinked a couple of times, wondering if I had hallucinated the whole thing. Did I really just have a conversation with the master of death in which I argued trading my soul for Tera’s? A part of me felt dirty from the idea of conspiring with another person to end someone’s life, but then again, no one was supposed to be immortal. I was just undoing a mistake I had made. If I was lucky, Tera was completely oblivious to my mistake and I would be able to fix this without her ever being the wiser.
The only major problem was that I didn’t have even the beginnings of a clue as to how in the world I was going to make her mortal again. Causing immortality had been a complete accident on my part. But I knew that an accident wasn’t going to save my ass. I needed help. Serious, experienced help and I needed it now … before the clock ran out on my brief reprieve.
Jogging through the parlor, I burst out the back door and pounded up the wooden stairs to the second floor where Trixie was supposed to be sleeping. I hated to disturb her, but I didn’t have any choice. I had to find a way out of this mess. The elf could catch up on her sleep later. Throwing open the door, I saw Trixie peer out from the bedroom doorway and look down the hall at me.
“I need you to do me a favor.”
“Sure,” she replied, sounding a little taken aback by my sudden appearance.
“Can you open the parlor for me today? Feel free to grab a few hours of sleep and open it late. That’s fine with me. I’ve got an errand to run that I have to do right now.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve got it. Is everything all right?”
“Not in the slightest,” I muttered under my breath. “One other thing, can you look up the information sheet that Tera McClausen filled out yesterday when I gave her the tattoo? I need to call her.”
“Anything else?”
“Yes—I’ll lock the doors downstairs, but I want you to lock this door behind me. If someone is looking for you, or whatever tale you want to tell me, then you need to try to protect yourself by locking the goddamn door.”
To my surprise, a bright smile graced her beautiful face. “Thanks, Gage. I’ve got it.”
I hoped so. It was bad enough my ass was in the fire. I wasn’t sure that I would be able to protect her at the same time if things suddenly turned ugly. But I could try.
“If you want, you can wait to open until either Bronx or I get to the shop,” I offered as I turned to leave and pull the door shut behind me.
Trixie’s wonderfully light laughter danced through the small apartment before finally sliding around me. “I’ll be fine, Gage. Run your errand. I’m not completely helpless.”
“I know,” I mumbled, feeling more than a little silly for treating her like some witless damsel in distress. For her to have survived this long in this neighborhood, she had to have learned to take care of herself. “Just be careful.”
Closing the door behind me, I descended the stairs, listening for the telltale click of the lock being shoved into place on the door before I finally entered the parlor again. I locked the back door and checked my pockets for my keys and wallet before exiting through the front door. I had only one chance of finding a way out of this. I just hoped that my old tattooing mentor Atticus Sparks was still in the area.
Or at the very least, still alive.
9
THE DRIVE ACROSS town took only a few moments, but the results were not as I had hoped. I turned into a parking lot that was situated just a few buildings from where his shop was located. With a quick glance around to take in the few people wandering the sidewalks, I jogged to the building and skidded to a sharp stop in front of dirt- and dust-covered windows. The sign over the shop was missing, and gazing inside through the dirt revealed an empty storefront that hadn’t been used in what looked to be years.
I stumbled a couple of steps backward, clenching my fists at my sides in desperation as I looked up to the second floor. Sparks had always used the second-floor apartment as his residence. I knew it too well after spending the better part of four years sleeping on a narrow cot in a room the size of a closet while I was going through my apprenticeship. It had been anything but a comfortable period of time for me, and I certainly wasn’t getting laid, but I was busy learning everything that Sparks could possibly teach me about the tattooing world.
“Sparks!” I bellowed up at the second floor, hoping against my better judgment that he might actually have stayed in the building but had moved his shop to another part of town. There was no answer, no movement in front of the windows, which looked just as dirty and empty as those on the first floor. Passersby gave me a wide berth as I cursed under my breath. Sparks had packed up shop and moved on to some other tantalizing spot. At least I hoped that was the case.
“Damn it, Sparks!” I growled, kicking the door to the shop. I could find the old man, assuming that he was still alive, but it would mean using magic, and I was in enough trouble already. The man had never been big on advertising and I didn’t expect to find his name in the white or yellow pages. He lived by the creed that the best kind of advertising was word of mouth, mostly because it was free.
Now I was in more trouble than I had expected. Standing on the sidewalk, I was trying to think of some way of locating where Sparks might have disappeared to when the thick scent of magic started to waft around me. I spun around, my hands extended, barely resisting the urge to call up my own barrier to protect me from whatever was brewing. My skin prickled and a cold sweat beaded across my back and down my spine despite the growing heat of the afternoon sun. Someone was coming. Someone powerful.
The distinct smell of magic was that of a warlock or a witch, but it wasn’t Gideon riding my ass again. No, the black-cloaked figure who suddenly appeared on the sidewalk a few feet from me was Simon Thorn. It didn’t look as if he had aged since I had last seen him. Then again, the Ivory Towers occupants had long ago learned to stretch the years of their lifetimes. I hadn’t seen him since I had given up my warlock studies years ago. I had barely survived the experience, but I did give as good as I got, making him wary of me.
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