Reaper (16 page)

She pressed the blade of a knife against the
beans, crushing them enough to release a bit of juice then scooped
them up onto the blade using a rag and dropped them into the slow
cooker. She threw away the paper bag, knife and the rag.

Well aren’t you a bad girl, Oz thought.

A car door slammed.

Beth jumped. She took a deep breath and
smoothed back a few fly-aways.

The front door opened, and a man in an old,
but well-made suit trudged through the living room and into the
kitchen where Beth stood, back against the counter, blocking his
view of her dinner preparations.

“Hi, baby,” he said, and kissed her forehead.
He fell against the island and loosened his tie. “Rough day.”

You have no idea, buddy.

“Guess it’s a good thing I made your favorite
tonight,” she said.

“Mmm. I can smell that. Did you use my mom’s
recipe?”

Oz sat cross-legged on the scuffed linoleum
and leaned his head against the wall. “This ought to be good,” he
muttered.

“It
will
be good.” Beth said.

Oz straightened.
There’s
no way she
heard me.

Her husband’s eyebrows furrowed. “What? Mom’s
recipe. With the red potatoes?”

Beth’s muscles visibly loosened. She dipped
into a more seductive, fuck-me-against-the-counter, position. It
was forced, porny. But her expression was snake-like.

“Sure did, hun. Just for you. How about you
sit at the table and I’ll dish us up some.”

Don’t do it, man.

But of course he did. Beth served two bowls
of the steaming stew, one from the slow cooker and one from the pot
she’d set aside. She dropped a spoon into the bowl meant for
her.

Oz followed her into the dining room. Why
would she want to kill her husband? He seemed pretty stupid, but
isn’t that how “bitches” like their men? Stupid and obedient? The
mom comment wasn’t smart, but hardly something to murder over.
Although, being an avid watcher of Cops, Oz had seen women attack
for less.

Beth’s husband took a generous bite of meat
and potatoes. Chewed. Swallowed. By the time the second bite was en
route to his mouth, the color fell from his face. He gagged once.
Gripped the corner of the linen tablecloth and dragged it and
everything else from the table to the floor with him.

Beth watched, holding her breath.

The stink of the wolf licked the back of Oz’s
neck. Its smell churned his stomach. The Ba hadn’t time to leave
the poor dumb bastard’s body before the wolf circled around next to
Oz. They locked eyes for an instant and Oz knew that the wolf knew
his mind—the he wasn’t going to do anything but sit there until he
was allowed to leave.

So why’d he even get in Beth’s car? Come to
the place where she would murder her husband? Because, Oz realized,
he didn’t have a choice. He had “free will” until the moments
before someone was going to die, and then some cosmic kid with a
joystick in the back of his brain forced him into their presence.
He wanted more than ever to leave now, this moment, but he
couldn’t. He was forced to watch. To wait until the Ba was gone.
The joke was on that cosmic kid, though, because he was going to
stick to his plan. Control what he could. He wouldn’t be a
puppet.

The wolf didn’t hesitate; it locked its jaws
around the crown of the Ba and ripped it from the husband’s body.
Oz turned away. He couldn’t look directly at it for fear of meeting
the Ba’s eyes.

The wolf bounded through the house with its
prize in tow.

Oz stood slowly, allowing bones and muscles
to adjust to a standing position. This body must’ve been older than
Oz thought. He looked to his right. Beth was still in her chair,
but she stared directly at him.

Can’t be.

When her eyes didn’t waver, and her legs
tensed, poised at the toe as though waiting for her cue to start
running, Oz began to think that maybe...

“Who the fuck are you?” she demanded.

The bottom dropped out of his stomach.

“I said—” Beth stood.

Oz heard her yelling as he bolted for the
door.

Chapter
Seventeen

Oz ran.

He should’ve paid attention to how he’d
gotten to psycho bitch’s house. Everything looked the same, down to
the cookie-cutter children playing the same game of foursquare in
front of every other house. Street names were no help because even
if Oz had paid attention to them in the first place, he’d have
confused them anyway. Birch Avenue, Elm Street, Pine Lane, Sycamore
Circle—all would’ve registered in his mind as “Tree Street” during
the initial absorption and he would’ve been fucked.

Oz imagined her coming after him now to clean
up the loose end. Don’t want some guy blabbing to the cops that her
cooking wasn’t exactly—

No. Calm down. She’s got a body to take care
of, and you’re already dead.

He slowed to a jog. When he could no longer
see her neighborhood, even if he squinted and looked really, really
hard, he decided it was safe to walk. Speed walk.

She’d seen him.

Big deal, Jamie had seen him, too.

Yeah, but Jamie had seen him from the
beginning. From the second they were in each other’s presence.

Oz spent a significant amount of time in
Beth’s back seat and she’d been oblivious. She didn’t notice, like
everyone on the damn planet didn’t notice.

So what changed? Oz knew the answer. His
shitty plan had backfired. That was the only explanation. When he’d
come up with the idea, he hadn’t banked on the fact that actual
people, live people, would be affected; and if it affected people,
it’d definitely affect the other reapers, too. It was only a matter
of time before weird shit happened to Bard and Cora, and that’s
when they’d come looking for him.

The more Oz walked, the more lost he became.
The sun sets in the west. Moss grows on the—something. South? Who
knows? His dad had been right. He should’ve stuck it out in the boy
scouts.

Suburbs and more suburbs punctuated by the
occasional gas station or Walgreens.

Finally he came to a road with more than one
lane, dappled with storefronts. Eventually this road had to lead to
the interstate, or at least to another road that led to the
interstate. From there, he’d be able to find his way back to his
apartment where he would crawl into bed and stay there until the
joystick kid dragged him out again, which, he hoped, would be
never.

The sun had long set, west or east, he didn’t
care. About a half a mile down the main road, a lone building sat
far enough away from a shopping center as to not be considered part
of it, but close enough to be used as a directions marker. The
windows were dark except where Budweiser, Absolut, and Pabst Blue
Ribbon signs were illuminated. The door opened, and from across the
street Oz heard the telltale
thump, thump, thump
of dance
music.

What the hell. He could use a drink.

Oz waited for a wave of cars to pass before
trotting across the road. The parking lot was mostly full. He
didn’t see a sign anywhere advertising a name. It was one of those
places that you would never find unless you knew it was there, or
you were completely lost.

Not wanting to experience a burned flesh
repeat like at
The Waning Crescent
, Oz waited until the
group huddled in a smokers’ circle a few feet from the door
finished their cigarettes. Two women and one man. Or was it two
men? The streetlights weren’t working on this stretch of the road
so it was difficult to see anything. A few mumbles. They snubbed
their cigarettes against the railing of a half-finished patio.

The woman—Oz couldn’t decide if she was
beautiful; all women look beautiful in the dark—opened the door.
Oompta, oompta, thump, thump.
The high haunting voice of a
female singer he’d never heard before. He cautiously followed the
group inside.

That was when Oz knew something was wrong. He
shouldn’t have been able to take the first step inside – that
feeling at the back of his mind was absent. And yet, here he was.
Faced with the options of leaving or staying to discover why, Oz
chose to stay.

It was smaller inside than it’d looked
outside. Three high-top tables lined the far back corner opposite
the bar, which had no seating. Next to the bar was a small stage
upon which a Latin man with a waxed six pack, clad only in a bright
pink speedo, gyrated in time to the music.

The last and only time Oz had been in a gay
bar was a week before Mark’s bachelor party. It was an accident,
mostly. A friend of a friend insisted that a place called
Horsefeathers
was the greatest place for a group of guys
looking for a few laughs and cheap drinks. Drinks and laughs, sure,
Horsefeathers
had both of those. But what it’d been lacking
was women who were interested in dick.

This bar was called Chambers. A flashing,
neon sign boasting the name hung in a curve above the display
bottles behind the bar. The bartender wore a purple velvet bowtie
around his neck and no shirt. His hair was combed so meticulously
and saturated in so much hair product the track marks left by the
comb were visible. He looked old enough to have a receding hair
line, but he had a full head of thick, dark hair. Was there
something in the gay gene that prevented hair loss? On Oz’s
thankful-for list was the fact that he’d died before he had to deal
with losing his hair. His father was completely bald before he
reached his forties, same with his grandfather.

He approached the bar, keeping a sharp eye
for unattended drinks that he could swipe, hoping for a whiskey,
but beggars couldn’t be choosers. Either out of safety or habit,
all of the patrons kept tabs on their drinks. Mid-bar, a guy who
looked almost too young to be in the bar in the first place
abandoned his drink to wrap his arms around a friend, and Oz saw
his opportunity. He almost had his hands on the drink when a man
blocked his path.

Tallish. Perfect posture beneath a form
fitting plain black t-shirt. His hair had that contrived effect to
it, as if he’d spent an hour making it look like he’d just rolled
out of bed.

“Hi,” he said, and smiled.

Oz looked behind him, but the man to his
right was in deep conversation with a drag queen.

“You’re one of those self-conscious guys,
eh?” the man said. “You think with your two days-worth of facial
growth and tattered vintage clothes you couldn’t possibly get
picked up at a bar. Am I right?”

Oz turned slowly. The tall, coiffed man
winked at him. Okay, so this guy could see him, too. Could everyone
in the bar see him? Or only some? And, what the hell? Tattered?

“I...”

“Let me buy you a drink,” Black T-Shirt
said.

“I dunno.”

“Oh, come on. Just one. What are you
having?”

“Whiskey,” Oz relented.

“Name’s Michael. Like the angel. What’s
yours?”

“I don’t think I should tell you.”

“That’s fine. I like mystery.”

He smiled in a way that made Oz feel naked in
the awkward, fifth-grade teacher is looking at you sort of way, but
a free drink was a free drink. He turned his back to the bar to
watch the crowd, and Oz’s eyes settled on someone familiar.

It took a minute for his mind to make the
connection, but it was definitely Chubby Ethan. He was less chubby
now, but there was no mistaking it. Who else would still be wearing
that obnoxious vest—black with lime green pin stripes—almost thirty
years after high school?

Oz had sporadic contact with him after
graduation. Ethan had gone to the University of Tampa to study
business at the bequest of his parents as consolation to the fact
that while he hadn’t officially “come out,” they knew, as did the
rest of Ethan’s friends, that he was gay. Oz went a little further
north to Gainesville to study history where he eventually dropped
out to become a writer. His GOP donating parents would’ve preferred
he’d been a gay CFO than a writer.

Ethan gestured wildly, sloshing his drink,
holding the attention of several younger men that’d formed a half
circle in front of him. He always was theatrical.

“Whiskey for Mr. Mysterious,” Michael said
and handed Oz a glass.

“Thanks,” he said without meeting Michael’s
eyes.

He wanted to get closer to Ethan.

“Listen, I don’t—”

“Please,” Michael cut him off with a wave of
his hand. “You have ‘straight’ written all over you, okay? I just
thought it was a shame that someone as good looking as you didn’t
have a drink in his hand.”

“Oh.”

“You thought you were going to have to break
my heart? Cute.”

Oz knocked back a large swig from the glass.
A pleasant burn traveled down his throat and warmed his chest.

“Does that line ever work?”

“Sometimes. Everyone has their off days.”
Michael winked. “I do have to ask, though, what are you doing in a
place like this?”

“That’s a good question,” Oz said.

Michael chuckled. “Famous last words.”

He squeezed Oz’s shoulder then turned to
engage the bartender.

Oz couldn’t take his eyes off of Ethan. It
was beyond tempting. Someone from his life right in front of him.
Alive. There had to be a rule against interacting with the living.
Bard never mentioned one, but Oz had that creeping feeling in the
pit of his stomach, like when you’re about to lie or pocket the ten
bucks that the stranger in front of you dropped. Wrong, but
unavoidable.

Gripping his drink like a torch, Oz shuffled
through the crowd to the other side of the room where Ethan held
court. His admirers were enraptured.

“... so this guy who called me a fag? Next
thing I know, he pulls me aside and of course I think he’s going to
punch me in the face or something so I brace myself and pray that
he only breaks my nose because it needs to be fixed anyway and then
he whispers—whispers, girls—in my ear ‘You think I could get your
number?’”