1 Grim Tidings (2 page)

The scepter lit up, emitting a bright flash of light, and I could see Stan’s spirit start to break up as it filtered into the scepter. The last look he managed to muster was one of abject terror before he completely disappeared.

“Well, that went well,” I said finally.

“That’s not what Dad is going to say,” Aidan replied.

He was right. I scowled as I imagined the diatribe I was sure to be on the receiving end of later tonight. It sucks when your Dad is also your boss.

“You want lunch?” Aidan asked. He didn’t look too worried about the ass-chewing we were sure to get in a few hours.

“Make sure it’s some place we can get drinks, too.”

“We’re Irish,” Aidan laughed. “That’s a given.”

I followed him out of Stan Parker’s apartment without a backward glance. This was turning into a terrible first day of work.

“So, let me get this straight, you had five souls to gather today and two of them ran while another two demanded appointments to plead their cases? That doesn’t sound like an auspicious first day.”

Cormack
Grimlock is an imposing sight. He’s six feet, two inches of solid muscle, black hair and a constant five-o-clock shadow. Even in his fifties, he’s still a breathtaking (and frightening) man. He’s my father, and I love him, but I feel the weight of his disappointment like an anvil around my neck when he feels like cutting it loose. And tonight he obviously feels like cutting it loose.

“It’s not as bad as it sounds,” I said, throwing myself onto one of the leather couches that decorate his library. It’s really only a library in the strictest sense of the word. To a normal person – one who didn’t grow up in the dark shadow of the reaper world – it was something more akin to a library research room. The walls are covered with dark bookshelves encumbered with thousands of dusty tomes, which my father insists we might need some day
. The far end of the room is dwarfed by my dad’s mahogany desk, which he sat behind.

“And how would you describe your first day on the job?”

I glanced over to the adjacent couch where my brother Aidan was sitting and studying his fingernails and tried to send him a mental SOS. He either wasn’t getting it or he was ignoring it – I had a feeling it was the latter. “Well, we did manage to gather all five souls.”

Cormack sighed, letting loose one of those patented parental grunts that can only be achieved when you have more children than you have patience. Since I was one of five children, my father had long since ceded complete control
, although he still likes to pretend sometimes. “I guess we can count that as a win.”

“See,” I smiled. “There is a bright spot.”

“Don’t push it.”

Aidan snickered, leaning back on the couch and fixing me with an amused grin. “I told you.”

“I don’t know why you’re so smug,” my father said. “You were in charge. You should have had a better handle on things.”

“You said to let her do it and just step in when things got out of hand,” Aidan argued. “I was following your directions.”

My father’s back stiffened. “Apparently you and I have very different definitions of what constitutes a situation getting out of hand.”

“Well, that sounds like your problem, not mine.”

I was surprised by Aidan’s tone. Every member of my family is plagued by foot-in-mouth disease. We don’t usually put that particular trait on display with our father, when we can help it, though. It doesn’t end well. Ever.

“What did you just say to me?” I
feared that if my dad’s face got any redder he might burst a blood vessel.

“I said you’re right,” Aidan sighed. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s what I thought you said.”

When I was sure my dad wasn’t looking, I shot a triumphant smile in Aidan’s direction. He flipped me off
, discreetly, but my father and his eagle eyes didn’t miss the gesture.

“I saw that.”

“Shouldn’t we get the soul transfer over with?” Aidan asked, trying to change the subject.

“Fine,” my dad replied. “Perhaps I should oversee the soul transfer, just to be on the safe side.”

“Knock yourself out,” Aidan grumbled.

My dad motioned for me to join him, holding out his hand so I could place the scepter in his palm. I watched as he took the silver staff – which was about ten inches long – and placed the bottom end into the purple urn in the corner of the room behind his desk. The process was a mild curiosity – until I joined the family business I wasn’t allowed to see this part of the operation. The urn lit up
, flashing once, twice, ultimately five times, and then going dark. My dad retrieved the scepter and handed it back to me.

“At least one job was done without incident today,” he grumbled.

“The easy part,” Aidan scoffed.

My dad opened his mouth to let loose with a choice verbal
smackdown but was interrupted when the door to the office opened and the rest of my family filed in. My older brothers, Redmond, Cillian and Braden, were in the middle of a deep conversation.

“She was after me,” Redmond said, sliding down onto the couch I had just vacated.

“You’re crazy,” Cillian said, his eyes flashing. “She wanted me.”

“You’ve both gone blind,” Braden interjected. “She kept touching my bicep. She wanted me.”

“She kept touching all of our biceps,” Redmond argued. “She tried to stick her tongue in my ear, though.”

“She was coughing,”
Cillian replied. “That wasn’t her tongue. It was spit.”

Gross.

All of my brothers look exactly alike. No, really, they do. If not for the white streaks I had recently added to my hair, there would be no doubt that we all swam from the same gene pool. Every one of us had inky black hair and bright purple eyes, both traits passed on to us from our father. There wasn’t a lot of deviation in our ages – apparently our parents were randy in their youth – so we were extremely close, and competitive.

Redmond is the
oldest, and most stable at twenty-nine. Cillian is a year behind at twenty-eight, and he is a touch more volatile (and by a touch I mean he freaks out at the drop of a hat). Braden has middle-child syndrome at twenty-seven and, while the rest of us have straight hair, his is wavy like our mother’s was before she passed away. Aidan and I are the babies at twenty-five and, if Redmond is to be believed, we were not exactly happy accidents. It’s not as though my parents didn’t love us as children, but we weren’t explicitly in their family plan. They had intended to have three children – not five – so it’s no surprise that my father’s patience often wears thin with us faster than it does with my older brothers.

“What are you three arguing about?” My father’s voice was gruff, but his eyes were twinkling. He liked hearing about my brothers’ romantic conquests. Since my mother had died – almost a decade ago now – he had lived like a monk
, except for their stories.

“
Cillian tried to steal my date,” Redmond explained. “She shot him down, though.”

“She shot you down,”
Cillian argued.

“She obviously shot you all down because you all came back here alone,” I interjected, shoving Redmond’s foot from the coffee table so I could move past and settle into the open spot on the couch next to him.

Redmond slung his arm around my shoulder affectionately. “We actually came home early to see how Aisling’s first day of work went.”

My mouth
dipped into a frown as I regarded him.

“That bad?
It will get better, kid,” he said, squeezing my shoulder in a show of solidarity.

“If she had finished her training when she was a teenager, she wouldn’t be scrambling to catch up now,” Dad said.

Redmond rolled his eyes. This was an old argument. When I was eighteen, I had gotten drunk at a holiday party and informed everyone that I had no intention of joining the family business as planned. We were raised knowing that we had to join the reaper fold, and my brothers had all fallen into line.

I had wanted something different, something that didn’t revolve around death. So, instead, I dropped out of the reaper-training program and started classes at the local community college. After changing my major four times – nothing seemed to fit just right – I dropped out and took a job as a secretary at an insurance agency. Unfortunately for me, downsizing eliminated that position about six months ago.

With few options – and no degree to fall back on – I finally agreed to join the family business when my roommate gave me an ultimatum: Start paying rent or get out. He meant it in the nicest way possible. No, really, he did. He was just trying to give me some direction – one that didn’t lead to a fast food chain -- at least that’s what I keep telling myself.

So, here I
am. I joined the family line, but there was no way I was going to move back into this mausoleum on the hill. It’s kind of like a castle. I’m not exaggerating. When you tell people you live in a suburb of Detroit, they picture falling down houses and rampant gang bangers. We live on Grosse Pointe’s Lakeshore Drive, though, in one of the richest areas of Michigan. Even for this area, though, our house is just a little bit too much. You know that show,
Downton Abbey
? They wish their house was this big. No joke.

All four of my brothers still live here
, taking over one of the wings as their party pit (their words, not mine). I couldn’t get out of here fast enough, though. To me, a home is supposed to be warm and inviting. The only thing this house invites is unrest.

“I don’t want to argue about the training again,” I said, my voice low.

“Let the training thing go,” Cillian agreed. “It’s over. It’s done with. You’ve won. Move on.”

“I’ve won what?” My dad looked incredulous. “Is this the lottery and no one told me?”

“You wanted her in the family fold since she announced that she wasn’t going to do it,” Braden said. “She’s in the family fold. Give it a rest.”

My brothers are nothing if not loyal. Sure, they’re total pains, but they’re loyal pains.

“I wanted her to go through the proper training and join the business when she was nineteen, like the rest of you,” Dad replied. “I didn’t want her to waste money and jump around from job to job before finally starting work with us because she had no other choice.”

“I didn’t jump from job to job,” I grumbled.

“And she paid for her own college,” Redmond reminded my dad. “Why don’t you stop bringing it up?”

“Why don’t you mind your own business,” my dad shot back.

“Why don’t we all calm down,” Aidan suggested.

“You’re the reason we’re even having this discussion,” Dad said, fixing his eyes on Aidan.

“How?” Aidan’s voice was high and unnatural.

“You helped her pay for that community college,” my dad charged on. “You didn’t think I knew that, did you
? But I knew.”

“So what?”
Aidan said, his voice angry and firm. “That was my choice, not your choice.”

“And how did it work out? Was it money well spent?”

Aidan shifted his gaze over to me uneasily. “She wanted to see what was out there. I don’t see what the big deal is.”

“The big deal is she is one of us, despite whatever it is she’s done to her hair – and I know you did that just to tick me off, young lady – and she should have been with us from the beginning. Do you know how many jokes I had to listen to at the reaper council because she chose to be a secretary instead of a reaper?”

“So you’re angry because your friends are asses?” Redmond was rubbing his hands together, as though spoiling for a fight (which was often the case).

“I’m
angry because, until now, she’s been a tremendous disappointment.”

The jab hit me where it was supposed to – right in the heart. His aim was always true
, even if he regretted the words the minute they escaped from his mouth.

“She’s not a disappointment,” Braden growled, getting to his feet. “Don’t call her that.”

My father’s face softened, instant contrition taking over. “I didn’t mean that.”

“Then why did you say it?” Aidan asked.

“Because … I don’t know why I said it. She just frustrates me. I didn’t mean it, though.”

“You frustrate us,”
Cillian interjected.

“How do I frustrate you?”

“By saying things like you just said. Why do you always have to harp on her?”

I listened to the argument continue around me with my ears but I tuned it out with heart and my head. I can’t let him get to me, I reminded myself. He didn’t mean what he said. No, he really didn’t. Boys he gets.
Adolescent boys. Teenage boys. Adult boys. He gets their feelings and emotions and he can deal with them.

High-strung girls with their drama and mean
-girl attitude, though? That he doesn’t get. He was fine with me when I was little, when I was digging in the dirt and wrestling with my brothers. When I wanted to be Batman he was perfectly fine. The minute I put on a skirt and discovered boys, though – in the same way (and at the same age) that Aidan discovered boys, by the way – he started to falter as a parent. That’s when my mom swooped in and took over as the main parental figure for Aidan and me. Even though Aidan didn’t know what he was at that point, my mom knew. My dad claims he didn’t, but I find that hard to believe.

When my mom died while trying to collect a soul in a burning building – it happens more often than most reapers would like to admit – my dad had to take
on our parenting again. He wasn’t very good at it, by his own admission. Not that he didn’t try. He did try – and those are the memories I cling to.

“Let’s just drop it.” I had said the words
barely above a whisper, but every head swung in my direction and all arguing ceased.

“I’m on your side,” Redmond said, gripping my shoulder tightly.

“I know, and I appreciate it. It’s just not worth arguing about. I know I’m a disappointment. It doesn’t hurt me anymore. Just let it go.”